Can you try making another version where you make the outline 10 to 20% darker and separate each button by a vertical line that has the same color as the main outline?
And if you want to be a bit more creative, try and find some screenshots of older toolbars, that had more colors on it, and see if you can incorporate some colors on some buttons, like M, S, R.
Or at least outline some of those buttons with different color outlines. I just remembered that we also have to consider what kind of colors buttons have when they are actually pressed down.
Another thing I just thought about. In my opinion, the toolbar can be one big visual mess, where there are too many buttons of the same color. I donât know about any of you, but I can discern (or distinguish) things better visually if they have different colors associated with them.
What if every button section/category had a slightly different color outline? Or at least had a thicker vertical line of different colors to the left of each button section.
Well maybe the last part is a bit too much, but we are just brainstorming here
Hopefully Steinberg could be inspired by some of these ideas and provide a few new options to customize the appearance of Cubase, for those who prefer it.
If I darken the outline too much than it starts to lose too much definition and confuses the eyes again. I think that the border outline makes the users eyes and mouse cursor positioning more accurate and focused because you can clearly see the button groupings.
When I think about âcoloured iconsâ I think about other productivity apps such as Gimp, Inkscape etc and how they offer several different coloured icon theme presets. Thereâs definitely some room for experimentation with coloured icons and icon theme presets.
It would also be nice if Steinberg could introduce some more Cubase theme presets for example:
Dark
Medium
Light
And then add in some more experimental / artistic themes for fun.
Allowing Cubase to be skinable is another concept that I support, it would be interesting to see what the community comes up with.
I have already been experimenting with vertical button spacer lines, if I come up with something that I like than I will post it.
Anyway iâm not trying to re-invent the wheel here. All iâm asking for is some more defined borders, a touch of contrast separation, and a touch of highlight gradients just to add a hint of depth and visual clarity into Cubase.
I agree and appreciate the time and effort the OP, fese, took to illustrate some issues. Iâve been using Cubase since the early 90s, For most of that time I used to look forward to working. Now I just stumble through as best I can.
my 2c
At this point Iâd say anything would fit as long as the contrast is improved. This is a excellent rework! I would personally not join the buttons however.
Hello Ed, thank you for responding and giving us some hope that our concerns are taking seriously.
To be perfectly honest, as you mention âstaying consistentâ, I would really love to have an answer as to why it was decided to redesign the mix console, which mustâve taken considerable amount of time and effort, when
a) there are still some UI elements left from Cubase SX days. Speaking of consistency, it would be preferable to have one complete redesign, if so necessary, of everything at once (and then maybe refine that), instead of having regular incremental changes over the years. As someone else wrote here, there is the feeling that the Cubase UI is constantly changing while at the same time at least since C7 being a mishmash of several UI design phases of the last twenty years.
b) I canât remember seeing a feature request here on the forum âplease redesign the mix console completely (and take away some functionality in the process)â. There are many many feature requests here, lots of them long standing, but rarely ones concerning the mix console design. Maybe Iâve overseen it, dunno.
Also, again regarding consistency, I would wish for Steinberg to take the time and implement a design style guide for their whole product range, taking into consideration Usability and Accessibility.
At the Moment, it seems like every product team has their own UI designer and there is not really an instance that checks for overall consistency (one example: for years now Cubase has had a great plugin selection dialog with search and plugin sets, whereas Dorico as a new-ish product has - something that is a major clickfestâŚ).
But my biggest and at the same time smallest wish: Make text legible again, increase the font size to the levels of C12. The place in most UI elements is there.
Also it shouldnât take 1 year just to roll out a few small GUI changes. If something in the GUI can be improved upon they should be getting rolled out with every maintenance release. Itâs un-acceptable that it takes so long and that it is still a inconsistent, uninspiring mess.
Wow, you have too much time on your hands Great efforts, although I cannot fail to notice that imho it seems like most stuff youâre trying to achieve (contrast, separation) were already there in C12
I think I could live with both versions here - the differences are indeed subtle, and everything youâve done seems somewhat better that then current version to me. Although I think that the track nameâs field should somehow reflect the track colors.
As youâve already realized, designing something like the Mix console is not an easy task, I fully understand that (which is why it is still baffling to me why to redo something completely that has been mostly solved in C12). The fun of course starts when a user chooses to colorize the channels, now what to do with font colors and contrast?
Yes, I just want a little bit of contrast, highlights, shadows, gradients and outlines / borders just to add a pinch of depth perception and visual clarity. I mean the current GUI is just a lazy flat 2 dimensional grey on grey and Steinberg still struggles to get visibility contrast and text sizes correctâŚ
The flat look tends to make my eyes go cross eyed when looking at it, itâs not very pleasant.
Why keep a darker background behind the fader? No other DAW does that, and I canât think of a real mixer that does that (definitely not mine). It should have the same background colour as the rest of the mixer.
Lines behind the fader should also be centered (IMO not even needed besides 0dB one). That change was really made just for the sake of doing something.
Even Reaper has a better-looking mixer. I canât believe that Iâm saying this
I like this version with squared edged buttons, and the gradients are very nice. This version had too much shadows around buttons I think, it looked a bit too prominent.
Great efforts, although I cannot fail to notice that imho it seems like most stuff youâre trying to achieve (contrast, separation) were already there in C12 
