I’ve mentioned global scaling controls similar to Ableton here. Would be very nice to have that, especially on lower resolution screens.
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I started that thread, and I never imagined it would grow to 702 posts. It’s sad that Steinberg hasn’t done much to improve the GUI, if anything it seems to me that they made some things smaller.
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This is one instance where I mostly agree with you. I don’t have a major issue with the contrast between the font and its background in the new design. Not everything should “pop” on the interface, IMO. However, something is definitely going on with the font because the smaller size font in the new design is noticeably blurrier.
Also, given the fact that these different Track Inspector sections will most often be hidden thus requiring repeated clicking on the arrows to expand or collapse a given section, it was better when these expandable/collapsable section labels were larger to provide a larger affordance.
That said, unless you hide some of these different sections, you will need to scroll up and down frequently on a smaller display. So I understand what Steinberg was going for by making these section labels smaller.
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Although I do see some Windows applications (even a few from Microsoft) that embed the menu bar in the title bar, this is not a best practice for Windows applications. It’s less of an issue now, but back in the Aero Glass days, displaying the menu bar within that hideous, blurry, fake “glass” title bar looked awful. Talk about text readability issues.
IMO, it’s always better to follow UI standards even if that means using up one more line within the UI.
Windows 11 design language seems to be around the Mica / Acrylic effect in the title bar.
Applications that I know of that use a minimal menu bar:
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Universal Audio LUNA:
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Visual Studio Code
I’m not entirely sure about the UI frameworks used for Windows Applications. Could be a mix of all standard frameworks. From the looks of it, it seems to be a custom title bar solution that houses the menubar as well.
Regarding readability, having an acrylic or glassy title bar shouldn’t really be a problem if executed well. MacOS has a decent frosted MenuBar.
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I think the flat design is not the problem (honestly, I like it), the problem is the poor performance of font size and contrast, which I believe can be fixed without going back to Cubase 12.
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In regard to the other topic being locked and the future (and potential) of this topic - I’d rather this topic doesn’t spiral into negativity without a clear purpose. So far, I think we’ve done a great job of keeping things rather positive and optimistic in here.
Someone mentioned earlier that we’re just complaining. But I think there’s a big difference between complaining for the sake of it and giving actual constructive feedback. We’re trying to help improve things by sharing specific visual examples, that Steinberg can take inspiration from.
So instead of labeling us as the “complainers”, they are welcome provide some examples, themselves. Otherwise they’re just complaining about the complainers, which is just silly.
If someone disagrees with our suggestions, then fine, they are welcome to disagree - but most of all, they are welcome to post an alternative suggestion, as long as it is a specific suggestion or a mockup, otherwise it becomes useless and inapplicable.
Those of us who are trying to contribute - we care enough about the company and the product, that we are willing to spend our own free time and energy to provide these suggestions, examples and even the time-consuming mockups, free of charge. If we didn’t care, we wouldn’t even bother. I don’t think we should be scolded or punished for trying to help. In the end, it’s up to Steinberg what they do - we can’t force them to do anything. And if we are lucky enough that they actually implement some of our ideas, then maybe those ideas weren’t too shabby after all, in the first place.
And there is no need to try and convince us that we are attempting to “ruin” the software by giving suggestions, as I have seen a few users do, already. Thinking like that is absurd. How exactly are we trying to “ruin” something by posting concrete examples with the intention of improving the software? Especially if there is an option to revert the state or the behavior of the software or its GUI to a previous, default or current state.
In other words, if the future versions of the software can behave and look exactly as it behaves and looks right now, but it has a couple of new options and settings to make it behave and look slightly different for someone else, if they choose so, then who exactly loses here? If anything, then on the contrary, having new customization options would be attractive for new customers, too, which means more profit for Steinberg.
And speaking of customers, I don’t think we should underestimate the amount of people that switch software, because a specific option or a setting, in regard to looks or behavior - that they prefer, or are used to - is unavailable to them in Cubase, especially if they are used to another software, that has exactly what they need. A lot of paying customers can be lost like that. This is another reason for keeping an open mind in regard to extra customization options - it has nothing to do with bloat. If you think that adding more customization options equals “bloat”, then go to Edit > Preferences and see just how many different options and settings there are already. Is that bloat? I’d say it’s freedom. And I bet that many of us stick to Cubase for that exact reason.
A significant portion of current Cubase users are willing to accept and tolerate the software even without these extra options, discussed and suggested in this topic. But it doesn’t mean that some of us don’t want them.
As I previously said, I would like to see this topic thrive and culminate in very specific visual examples, curated with help of community feedback. These final examples should be either implemented in the OP, or in some of the latest replies, tagging some Steinberg moderators to let them know, when it’s ready. Ed_Doll from Steinberg has already replied here:
I suggest we tag him, when it’s done.
The goal is to make it as easy as possible for the Steinberg development team to find and use these finalized examples. That way they always have quick and easy access to these examples if they need some inspiration or reference. Even professional employees like those of Steinberg could save a lot of time and energy simply by looking at these visual examples in this topic.
And sure, we can talk about it all we want in a very detailed, and descriptive manner, and it can help being descriptive and articulate, but there is nothing like a picture to convey the message (hence the cliché, that “a picture is worth a thousand words”).
This is why I think, that we should try and conclude this topic relatively soon, preferably within a few months, or even less. Otherwise we’ll just get stuck in the brainstorming stage for too long - because it can be too comfortable and tempting. You know how it is with creativity - you brainstorm for too long, and you forget to finish and “ship” your work.
Another reason, I believe, we should conclude this topic rather soon, is because if we don’t, then we might lose motivation and then the topic might to go into oblivion, or even worse be locked, because someone intentionally wishes to sabotage the progress or unintentionally perpetuating the negativity and indulging in off-topic insults. And you don’t have to use direct and obvious insults and name calling for it to go bad. Some people are really good at using somewhat “polite and diplomatic” language to plant the seeds of toxicity, which can bait other users into it. And it can be too tempting to jump onto the toxic wagon, so I really hope it won’t come to that. In other words, let’s use this topic for something good but not outstay our welcome.
In the meantime, we shouldn’t regress to the “us vs them” mentality. This is not about “my idea is better than yours” or “Steinberg should make Cubase better for me but not you”. The goal is to ping-pong our best ideas to each other and stay open to feedback. Then use that feedback to improve upon the ideas until they are near “perfect”. Or at least good enough to be included as final, curated suggestions.
Every time I post a mockup suggestion and someone does not like it, it’s fine, as long as they can provide specific info on why they don’t like it. Inferior or mediocre ideas should lead to better ideas via constructive criticism. And that type of criticism is not a personal attack but a well-intentioned way of improving the suggestion - the idea. And when most people start liking the final product - and hopefully Steinberg will, as well - then you could say that we have reached some sort of “democratic outcome”, where most of us could be satisfied with the final result.
And in the end, I think we should keep things simple and primarily focus on readable fonts, better contrast, visual separation and general improvement in readability of the entire GUI. Those should be the main focus, in my opinion. All of our other sandbox ideas, where we discuss more advanced GUI customization options - those are exciting to play and experiment with, and it could be awesome if Steinberg could consider them, too, in the future, but they should not detract from the primary, original idea of this topic, which is: To improve the visual Cubase experience for the user by making: 1). The text more readable without eye straining and 2). Adding better basic visual separation for GUI elements like the buttons, knobs, faders and borders.
So, to @D-Struct , @wavefunktion , @mlib and others who might be interested in providing visual feedback - let’s try our best and pull ourselves together a little, and wrap things up with some polished, tangible results, relatively soon. And I believe it will greatly increase the chances of those results to actually be implemented by Steinberg.
I personally nominate either @wavefunktion (as he has been really active and passionate about this) or @fese (original topic author), to take all the best visual suggestions posted in this topic (with the most amount of likes) and consolidate them in one big post, when we feel that we have something meaningful to present to Steinberg. And even better, we could take the best visual suggestions (mockups, concept art, etc. for the GUI) and tweak them, so they all end up in a similar visual style.
I know you are probably thinking: “who put you in charge”, and I’d say: “no one, and I don’t feel like I am, but if you got a better idea, let us know” 
This is what I meant earlier by taking an idea which can be flawed and building upon that.
I’m sorry for the wall of text, but that was the only way I could express what I was thinking for a long time. Damn, I need a break…
Happy hollydays to everyone!
TL;DR Let’s continue being positive and constructive and get to the point, so we can present some good visual examples to Steinberg. And then, hopefully, Cubase will become slightly better for everyone.
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Good Lord. I take it you are off work for the holidays. Because the novella you wrote must have taken an entire afternoon.
Regardless, my feedback was that it is a waste of development resources to add additional UI customization options to Cubase. The solution is to develop a single skin that will satisfy 95% of users and let the other 5% (who will never be satisfied without support for idiotic “skins”) go elsewhere. In other words, follow the approach Apple has taken with Logic. Logic is hardly suffering as a result and is widely regarded as one of the better-looking DAWs.
To help Steinberg develop a similarly great-looking UI, users can and should suggest ways to improve the Cubase UI, including suggestions for colors, level of contrast, fonts, iconography, etc. The aim should be to design and develop a single UI that is both functional and appealing.
Regarding fonts, I stated that the fonts in Cubase 14 are hardly “unreadable” or unusable. That said, some of the smaller text sizes do look a bit blurry. And that should be look into and hopefully addressed (even if that means adopting a new font).
Everything else was just straw man arguments that have nothing to do with what I actually posted.
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I hear what you’re saying, but you are barking up the wrong tree, Malibu Dog.
Left is better
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Happy Holidays y’all! 
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I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.
New GUI proposal. All of the Steinberg Cubase VST instruments and plugins should all be resizable. Considering that Steinberg is the creator of VST3 and all…
Who agrees ?
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I like the new design
Happy Holidays!
A couple of things I had in mind for the UI concepts are (might be harder to implement but will be a lot filtered) :
- Can we start over in a new post?
- We can look into setting up a wiki post to track design changes. (similar to version control so that people can refer to edit numbers or something similar to commit numbers for designs).
- Enable some sort of filtering / moderation to help stay on track with the goal of designing a better UI.
- Constant reviewing of designs and consolidation of ideas so that Steinberg engineers can take a quick glance and understand what our latest collective opinion is without having to scroll a lot and gather ideas from multiple posts.
This is just a suggestion. Feel free to scrap it if it’s not feasible.
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I like your ideas. But let’s hear what others have to say.
Personally, I think we should wait a little with creating a new topic. The advantage of this topic is the amount of votes and likes that it has, which shows the amount of people who agree with it, and therefore puts it on the radar of importance for Steinberg.
But yes, the amount of posts in here is both good and bad. Good because it shows the amount of activity in here. Bad because it’s too much clutter.
In my opinion, we should at least finish our mockups, in regard to better fonts, separation and contrast and post them here.
Then we can always start a new topic to discuss more advanced customization ideas.
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I concur 100%. At the very least HALion, Groove Agent, and The Grand should be resizable given that they are relatively expensive plugins. And Padshop and Retrologue should follow closely on their heels. Steinberg can then start chipping away at the various FX plugins.
In Steinberg’s defense, Apple still hasn’t made any of their legacy synth plugins like the ES2, Sculpture, and Ultrabeat scalable (although these have such heavy, “designer” interfaces that their entire UIs would probably need to be redone from scratch).
But still, in 2025 (or soon to be 2025,) EVERY plugin should be resizable!
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Sounds good to me!
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Cubase’s latest UX issues are a symptom of a very common attitude polluting the software industry in the last few years.
I call it “The Steve Jobs” syndrome.
In the software world, Steve Jobs has become a bit of a messianic figure. He seemed to possess a god-like ability to create things people didn’t even know they wanted.
And he did.
But he also missed the mark almost as often which people tend to gloss over.
Almost all developers, just like most Jazz musicians, think that they can be “Steve” (or Miles in the latter case).
In reality, that is just not true. It’s a very rare quality.
They think they know better than their users about what works and what doesn’t.
In truth, behind Steve’s drive were a ton of UX/UI experts and a crap load of testing and correcting, before products hit the shelves.
It wasn’t just Steve coming up with an idea.
So many developers create solutions that, while bringing some great features, are hamstrung by poorly thought-out and poorly-implemented UI decisions. Even when users (the people who give them money!) point these issues out, and plead with them to fix them, often with pretty clear and consistent feedback, the developers think “Stupid users! Don’t they understand that I’m a genius!? They will eventually understand my genius and how right I am!”
It happens now with pretty well every software product and website developer.
It has caused me to fall out of love with a number of software packages that I’ve used for years.
You may be a coding genius, but if you create stuff users can’t or don’t want to use, well, eventually, you’ll just be a barista.
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Well said. I also believe it has something to do with complacence of companies that grow too big for their own good. A company starts out small and is driven and motivated
to achieve success. But once it achieves that success and gets bigger, the focus changes, priorities shift and the communication between employers and employees, between employees and customers becomes less and less personal - more disconnected. The organization grows too big and the focus shifts from delivering value to the customer to maximizing profits. The vision becomes diluted. The foundation starts to crumble.
I hope Steinberg will stay strong.
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While I admit some points are valid, and as always there is a room for improovement, I prefer the current flat and simple GUI of the C14, in my opinion it is the way to go.
I disagree with all the gradients and blurry drop shadow design ideas. I think these don’t look modern and take us back in time to the Cubase/Nuendo GUI design of the 2000’s. When element separation/segmentation is needed, slight redesign, color and position change, sharp outline and filled borders (all in SVG for scaling and proper display on high resolution screens) usually help and improve visibility.
If Steinberg wants to know how users think and feel about the current GUI, create a poll and invite the entire user base to join the conversation. They get much more accurate feedback in UI/UX.
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