Cubase 14 GUI design regressions

I have the, possibly erroneous, impression, that a lot of users thought V13 was a bit, shall we say, garish. Maybe in V14 the devs sought to redress that balance?

I think your point is spot on. They got my upgrade money twice. I’m sure I’m in the minority of not liking the interface now. I’m using Pro Tools more and more because of it.

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Well, they haven’t achieved it. although I was hoping to see the old or new GUI option in the preferences menu. (It would be the best in my humble opinion to at least try to make everyone happy.)

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Same Here…i HATE the new GUI.
Old design, looks from an old time. God…Please, add an option to go back to C12 design button ! :cry:

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Exactly Pro tools used to get lot’s of complaints for the gui they still do lol but not for the gui anymore because they now allow you to change everything color aspects and brightness of it, I talk to lots of software engineers and they tell me if Cubase was an open source platform they could make it look however I wanted for little money since fonts, colors , brightness etc is easy to adjust, those white numbers kill your eyes when you use it for prolonged periods of time, let developers make skins for it and we could buy them if needed.

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Exactly Pro tools got me back just for the interface alone, I can work for hours and hours without getting my eyes stressed, Pro tools now has the best looking interface of all daws.

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Thank you OP - couldn’t agree with you more. It’s like its been designed by designers who don’t actually USE the program for actual extended work. I think C12 was pretty great overall and now it looks like a bit of a mess tbh that I have to squint at. It’s such a shame.

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And don’t get me wrong dark themes are the best I love them but as long as you can have elements with color like numbers etc and readability on fonts , because that black and white nonsense is outdated for real , there is so much technology available now that makes this a breeze to fix

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I know you,sir…cheers!!!

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I also went from C12 to C14. The look of C12 is modern, inviting and attractive. I find that the C14 design is flat, robotic and lacks personality; especially the Control Room. The faders look blurry at the top and bottom. Don’t like it at all. Maybe Steinberg can include a ā€œthemeā€ function in future updates to switch between C12 and C14 looks.

-Mark

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I know you too :joy::joy:

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This is also pretty annoying, the scrollbar that overlaps the button and depending on the direction you land on the button it appears and prevents you to click what’s under your cursor. (This is on Windows 11)
ScrollBarInterference

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Yes Steinberg needs to listen to their users not their designers

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The same thing in Mac.

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I disagree with this. Cubase is also a creative tool. A musical instrument. Engineers are not the only professionals using DAWs. Those times are long gone. DAWs and music software in general should be beautiful and inspiring as well.

That said, I do gree that 13 and 14 do have many questionable design choises. Beautiful doesn’t mean bad UX, tiny fonts and lack of contrast.

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Yeah, we are not programmers who have to spend long hours looking at Visual Studio (or a text editor :crazy_face: ) :wink:
Even when we work as engineers, we are creative people, and for many of us, it’s important to have pleasantly looking software. After all, we work in the creative industry, not some corporate office job with Word and Excel.

While ā€œbeautifulā€ is very personal, readability is not and there’s a real science behind developing a good GUI.
Also, the better the readability the faster the workflow.

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When Steinberg introduces changes to fundamental aspects of their software, it is essential to provide expanded customization options to accommodate diverse user needs and preferences. Without such flexibility, these updates can be perceived as imposed mandates, leaving many of us users feeling compelled to adapt to features they neither requested nor desired.

Has Steinberg ever heard of themes ? We could already have several different past Cubase GUI theme presets.

Who asked for a new toolbar ? Who asked for a new control room ? Who asked for a new inspector view ? And even after all of the GUI changes there are STILL many inconsistencies with text, contrast, colour, scroll bars etc…

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Agreed. It seems like Steinberg are being forced to develop and release new features each year for every new version of Cubase, that they are facing what is called ā€œfeature creepā€. This might explain why there seem to be so many challenges with keeping a consistent GUI, and why the priorities are not where they should be. That is, fixing existing bugs – that I’ve seen many users on the forum complain about – and providing more customization options for the existing GUI, instead of constantly expanding on the GUI to accommodate the new features, that they are releasing every year.

Just an observation on my part.

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I only agree to the fontsize, all other improvements regarding to the GUI, for me, they look much more fresher. And I’m an old guy 65+ :grinning:
But it’s the same discussion with a new version since years.

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The font size is my main issue, although some of the other problems I pointed out are IMHO not a matter of taste (I don’t care about ā€œfresherā€ and ā€œmore modernā€ looks), but a matter of professional UI/UX design and proper execution of that (e.g.: do not use a white font color on a light background!), and this is where a lot of users take issue with. It also doesn’t feel as if there is any consistency in the design process, as if every couple of years there is a new UI designer that starts from new…

For example, the new mix console design probably took a lot of time, yet apart from an all-flat look which pleases some people and others not, there is little benefit for the user, quite the opposite, lots of easily preventable contrast/legibility issues. And still there was no time to fix the remnants from Cubase SX days (+20 years ago), like the Preferences dialog and several progress dialogs?? Other windows have been redesigned twice in that time… IMHO that does not permit the ā€œProā€ in the product name.
(yes I am angry… I seriously consider switching to a 1920x1080 resolution to be able to work with C14. Which of course totally negates the reason why I bought a QHD monitor…

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