I totally agree with you. I’m glad you pointed that out because i’ve been meaning to mention that.
The inspector may not bother you too much, but it’s just plain bad GUI design philosophy in general to make elements so small that the text appears blurry from a normal sitting distance, there’s no excuses for Steinberg on that.
The inspector might look ok on 1080p resolution but anything above that it’s simply too small. I’m using 3440x1440 resolution. This issue brings us back to the conversation about implementing scaling options into Cubase.
I usually have Cubase on my 4k TV that I sit pretty close to and I have the UI scaling at like 150% or maybe 200% so it’s still readable for me. That said, I never endorse making UI elements smaller as it rarely makes any sense. Nobody has ever said, “Ah, I can see this so much better now that there’s less of it.”
As monitor resolutions increase (4k, 8k and beyond) I believe that the concept of in application GUI scaling becomes a more important concept because without it sure the user gets more pixel density / clarity but the user is typically unable to take advantage of the extra space that the higher resolutions can provide. Users should be able to scale most parts of the application GUI however they want, that way they can make the best use of the space for the application and their preference. The 25% increments in Windows scaling is too large and eats up too much un-necessary amounts of space in many circumstances.
Yes, that’s what I experienced, too. If I scale to 125%, I effectively go back to 1920x1080, could’ve saved the money for the QHD screen. Text is of course more legible, but I lose the real estate for the arrange area or editor windows. Also, if I use Cubase HDPI scaling (on windows), several plugins simply don’t work correctly anymore and become unusable, for whatever reason.
Still going strong, this thread, lets hope that Steinberg really takes it to heart and increase legibility and the other errors in design execution before v15.
For those discussing about flat or not flat design, I found the article by the Nielsen Norman Group (linked in one other thread referenced here) interesting, in that it points to the issues with a pure flat design which Cubase13/14 pursues and suggests “Flat 2.0”: “This design style is mostly flat, but it makes use of subtle shadows, highlights, and layers to create some depth in the UI.”. This actually supports my gut feelings about a flat design.
Another important quote:
As with any design trend, we advise balance and moderation. Don’t make design decisions that sacrifice usability for trendiness. Don’t forget that — unless you’re designing only for other designers — you are not the user .
Exactly. The in application GUI scalability concept that i’ve been thinking about would basically add a “scalability 0% - 100%” slider into every section of the Cubase application that has “Window Layout” settings. So things like Tracks List, Toolbars, Inspector Views, MixConsole Sections etc.
The user could have a mixture of different scalability percentages throughout the GUI of the Cubase application.
Not sure whether that is not a bit overkill, and imho wouldn’t be really necessary if SB didn’t decide to shrink everything in C13. I’ve rarely seen anyone complain about legibility issues in C12 and before.
I wouldn’t complain though if such a thing exists, though, but I think the focus should be on the font and color issues, and then scaling of the internal plugins (which is long overdue, as already mentioned, pretty much any other third party plugins can resize and/or scale).
I just found out why that is. If there is a line at the icon at there right, it means that the icon is a button and will execute some function on click (like bypass inserts).
This is of course absolutely not intuitive (although a bit better than C12 where all icons had that line, clickable or not), that line is barely visible and even with it, it just does not look like any common clickable elements users may know from elsewhere.
I don’t understand the necessity for those icons anyway, in my opinion they don’t add any value, as there is already a descriptive label. Text is always better than icons, especially when those icons are not common design language and very tiny to begin with.
There is actually already an icon that signifies an on/off state, and it is also used everywhere in Cubase, so a much more clear way to design the inspector would be something like this:
Same with the mixer:

The icons simply don’t help, and one of those isn’t even clickable.
Again, consistent solution would be to use an icon that is already introduced:

I started redoing the Inspector panel.
Before:
After:
The buttons are a bit tricky. Any detailed feedback would be nice in regard to outline thickness, colors and gradient colors, etc.
In Cubase v13 there’s a GUI issue with Audio Tracks “Channel Configuration” button border. It’s missing the outline border on the right hand side of the button as demonstrated in the following image. Can anyone confirm whether or not if this has been fixed in Cubase v14 ?
That is still there in 14.
Still in 14.
the peak meter could be to max height from routing to bottom, just only on the left side for example and on the right sends etc
Regarding scaling for increased resolution screens, this is a bit of a solution to a problem that shouldn’t exist in the first place. We, as consumers, were led to believe that the 4k or now 8k was ultimately needed for vewing purposes on work environments, and that is simply not true in my opinion (others may disagree) Just another case of tech marketing hearding people to things they truly don’t need or have real use to (I’m from Portugal, and all cable tv providers don’t go higher than full HD, for example). My main monitor is a 27” 2560x1440, and I’m having some trouble reading some stuff starting from version 13 - not on 14 as I’m a Nuendo guy), so I can imagine those with 4k or 5k screens.
I don’t think the point of 5k screen is to get more space. 5k simply gives us more sharpness when using UHD resolution. At least on macOS, native UI elements are optimised for 2560x1440 resolution on 27 inch screen. Apple sells 5k 27 inch screens, but they are still used at 2560x1440 by default. Each point is drawn with two horizontal and two vertical physical pixels which makes everything significantly sharper, but not smaller. Most of Cubase also looks decent at that resolution on 5K 27" screens on macOS.
4K displays also need to be scaled to get readable UIs, but scaling them 2 times gives us HD resolution, which results in too large UI. To get optimal UI on 4K 27 inch screen, non-integer scaling has to be used which is less GPU-efficient and produces artifacts.
Maybe it’s a “feature” of the used screenshot tool
Well, it’s showing the rendered pixels on my setup with a 4K monitor. If I was using a display with higher pixel density like say a 5K / 27” there would be more pixels involved and things would be looking relatively more crisp.
My monitor is a 38" 4k one.
Yes - See the conversation above with regard to 4K/5K
Correct, and the 14" MBPs don’t scale beyond 1080p. You can’t run the display at native resolution. They do this in all of their machines for their built-in displays.
You can run at native resolution on an external display, though at 27" a UHD display is not usable at normal viewing distances. You have to go to 125% scaling for it to be usable (150% is ~QHD)… At least for me (I have a 27" UHD here).
If you’re going to run at QHD, then just get a cheaper (or higher quality for same price) QHD display and run it at native resolution. It’s not a big difference from normal viewing angles.
Personally, I would pick a 120-144Hz QHD over a 60 Hz slower UHD every single time - after having experienced both. The benefits of the higher refresh rate obliterate any benefit the higher screen resolution brings at that display size (27").
Please ask the Steinberg Forum designer to design all Steinberg Software. This forum looks better than any software I have ever used.