Cubase 15 Custom Colors Nerfed?

chaosbringer · November 10, 2025, 3:49pm

In Cubase 14 we were given a “color wheel” style selector for the project/theme colors. In 15 this appears to have been removed.

Am I wrong, or was this intentional and if so, why?

How can I get pure black backgrounds again? I need dark backgrounds to reduce eye pain. Please give us the color wheel back.

PeteOldschool · January 3, 2026, 4:43am

“Same here. I have synesthesia, and I find the new workspace absolutely terrible. The new color system looks awful and completely disrupts my workflow.”

greatdaysofold · January 10, 2026, 7:08pm

Same for me. That´s terrible.

If this won´t be changed this had been my the last update I´ve purchased.

roberth909 · February 17, 2026, 2:52am

The color options in 15 are drab, putrid, kinda butt ugly. I’d like the purple I have in 14. Color is our friend.

Jeff_Lachelt · February 18, 2026, 2:53am

Still not fixed. Going back to Reaper

Markus_Leuthel · February 18, 2026, 6:05am

Hi @roberth909,

IMO, Cubase 15’s GUI coloring sub-system has been one of the worst development decisions so far . Cubase 10 had an outdated but considerably more flexible GUI color system, just not including the new track coloring system, which is in fact pretty good, it just lacks some sort of user palette preset save mode routine.

However, you can get back your manually adapted GUI color tone from Cubase 14 so you can have it “back” in program version 15. There are two workarounds to at least make the main GUI color in Cubase 15 look pretty much the same as in program version 14:

(1) Workaround 1:

deactivate (rename or delete) Cubase 15’s user preferences folder
upon next start, Cubase 15 should import the main GUI color from prog version 14

(2) Workaround 2:

open Cubase 14 (or program versions 13 or 12)
make (or check, or leave) your main GUI color choice
export your Cubase user profile as an *.SRF file
close Cubase 14 (or other previous version)
( → please note: this is for Windows only, not sure if this would work in MacOS )
copy the UserPreferences.xml from program version 14’s preferences folder
overwrite the file with the same name in program version 15’s preferences folder
restart Cubase 15
import your previously saved GUI-Color_XYZ.srf file
close and restart Cubase 15

Best wishes,
Markus

Vendimion · February 18, 2026, 4:57pm

This will also overwrite your Preferences you have made since C15 no ?

Markus_Leuthel · February 18, 2026, 7:20pm

Hi @Vendimion

yes, this would most probably be the price to pay.

Cheers,
Markus

roberth909 · February 20, 2026, 12:12am

Wow, awesome, I have my desired background color now in 15. I haven’t used 15 yet so I have no preferences saved. When I open 14 and 15 at the same time, the color in 15 is more muted, not so intense (probably easier on my eyes), but it’s close enough, love it. 14 on left, 15 on right.

roberth909 · February 21, 2026, 12:21pm

I should mention, the only thing I had to do in Mac was export the .SRF file from V14 (Edit\Profile Manager\Export) and then Import that file into V15 (Edit\Profile Manager\Import). I didn’t have to replace UserPreferences.xml. Then you select the new Profile, click Activate Profile, restart Cubase, and there are your colors. So it was very simple, no digging around in files.

If you try to alter the User Color Scheme in V15, it will snap right back to the new V15 color options. Just for fun and testing I made an insanely bright hot pink background in V14, and was able to import that into V15, so you can get weird if you want.

chaosbringer · February 26, 2026, 4:52am

This is actually the method I used when I made this post as well, and was actually able to get even more black parts of the GUI thanks to doing so.

However, I still would love to have our color options returned. Definitely won’t be upgrading any further as they keep messing up the things I like best about Cubase with every new update