I’m getting to the point that I’m having trouble reading the small font, mostly on the plug ins. I hate wearing readers when I’m working. My computer is set to a 4K resolution which I don’t want to change. I also have it set to zoom 125%, so my system fonts are larger and readable. When I enter Cubase however, everything is a bit small.
Can I enlarge fonts without disrupting the display resolution?
Old guys like me may know what I’m talking about
You might check to see if HiDpi is enabled within Cubase. It can be found under Edit->Preferences->General.
I’ve got my Windows display setting set to scale to 125% and within Cubase I have HiDpi enabled and set to scale %125 as well. This does the trick for me.
I’ve found that, at least in Windows, the display scale will affect things like standard menus and the like, and Cubase’s internal setting affects mostly scalable vector graph things. Plugins are hit-and-miss though. Some are HiDpi aware, many are not.
Not just Cubase unfortunately. I think it’s become the latest coder’s trend.
They’ve got bored with flat and dark, they’re getting bored with grey text on grey backgrounds - font size is the next obvious thing to attack in their war against common sense.
I hear you!
Windows styles changed from skeuomorphic to flat, and in my mind, flat styles require more ‘empty’ space for the eyes to see things sensibly. This is why features like scroll bars in Cubase just don’t seem right visually.
I also have trouble with the fonts, particularly on small 4K screens. In Win 10 the fonts seem to have a two tone black on white quality that is basically impossible to read.
One thing I found that helps is to change the Windows Default System Font from Segoe UI to Tahoma or similar.
Advice from elsewhere on internet, in regedit.exe go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts. Then delete all of the string values for all of the Segoe UI font entries. Then go to the next registry entry down called FontSubstitutes and add: Segoe UI REG_SZ Exact_name_of_font. The exact name of the replacement font can be found in Fonts from the above registry section.
I found that the rounder and wider fonts seem to help me.
I genuinely cannot comprehend how a company like Steinberg, with such a wonderful flagship product as Cubase, can consistently design one of the most difficult to navigate, read and interpret GUI’s in music technology.
I’ve been using Cubase since its B&W Pro-12 origins on an Atari STe (a platform not renowned for its hi-res screen real estate) and recall how almost every, single iteration since has been ever-more difficult to read.
The colour scheme(s) in particular are horrendously gloomy - various shades of grey with minimal contrast and almost no delineation between zones - coupled to the move away from skeuomorphic to flat visuals (with everything narrower and thinner) makes it nightmarish to use for more than an hour. If you’re the wrong side of 40 (and I’m well-past the right side of 40!) it’s almost impossible to use, even with suitable near-sight glasses.
There are myriad, well-understood solutions to these issues - albeit there’s no one silver bullet - but it appears Steinberg are entrenched in delivering gloomy colour schemes, a homogenised presentation, and cramming way too much information into individual screens. I think I would start with these fundamentals and then move on to offering a lot more user configurable presentation options, including font size.
Note: Given they control the VST standard, I’d suggest its within their remit to be able to affect the plug-in space in a positive manner too. But what would I know - I’m just a long-term user and I’ve never been consulted … a bit like every other Cubase user I know!
I have the same problem, everything gets super tiny on 4k, even at 150% at big monitors
its also a UI design thing i guess, Cubase has a lot of tiny things everywhere haha
Ive switched from 4k to 2k last year
Even my big 50" monitor on the wall is set to 150% zoom or it gets too small
2k is still very workable, otherwise it just gets too small after long periods of work
depending on your monitor size ofxourse
plus, if you really need that much desktop space you could think of 2 bezelles monitors next to each other?
My biggest problem are the small dB-values readings beneath the faders in the mixer. Before C13 this was much bigger, and easier to read. now they are very hard to read. Why such changes…….i find these readings important and hardly can see them, hate that.
This suggestion for how to change the fonts in Windows 10 came off of internet. And it now appears to be incorrect, at least in part. Knocking out all of the Segoe UI font names appears to also knock out the special font characters that show up in the Task Bar. Thereafter, all of the special font characters turn into rectangles. I’m still looking for the solution for how to change the fonts in Windows 10. In any event, wider and rounder fonts (but not necessarily taller) seem to be easier to read on a 4K screen with 100% (no) scaling. Sorry about the incorrect or incomplete info.
Does anyone know whether Cubase / Nuendo have their GUI’s developed in Qt:
Qt cross-platform GUI design and development suite
Qt’s framework & tools are viewed as an improved way to design, build and deploy GUIs whilst simultaneously developing apps for multiple platforms - a case of code once, deploy everywhere!
[Note: I guess I’m teaching Grandma Steinberg to suck eggs here!]
It’s my understanding that NI are now employing Qt to get around their previous UI development woes: Qt Framework Development GUI Tools & NI’s Komplete Kontrol Futures
Perhaps this kind of framework standardisation might go a long way to helping Steinberg reinvigorate their GUI’s and prevent some of the ongoing usability, legibility and overall ergonomic issues?
I’m no expert so this is just a discussion-provoking thought, that’s all…
If anyone followed the above advice on how to change the fonts in Windows 10. Here is how to fix the problem it created. The lost symbols in the task menu do return as a result of the changes below.
Also, it looks like changing the font .ttf file names does change the system fonts. So I think, if there are more readable fonts. They can be set as the Windows systems fonts by changing the .ttf names in the registry at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts.
I also deleted the Segoe UI REG_SZ entry that I added to FontSubstitutes. The combined result seems to have reset the system fonts, including the task menu icons.
I’m not sure these are exactly the original install list. There were some segui???.ttf files that may be a better match for the original installation list. In any event, the list below does seem to work. And seems to both correct the suggestion from above. And also provides a way to alter the system fonts by renaming the .ttf files to other .ttf choices.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]
“Segoe MDL2 Assets (TrueType)”=“segmdl2.ttf”
“Segoe Print (TrueType)”=“segoepr.ttf”
“Segoe Print Bold (TrueType)”=“segoeprb.ttf”
“Segoe Script (TrueType)”=“segoesc.ttf”
“Segoe Script Bold (TrueType)”=“segoescb.ttf”
“Segoe UI (TrueType)”=“segoeui.ttf”
“Segoe UI Black (TrueType)”=“seguibl.ttf”
“Segoe UI Black Italic (TrueType)”=“seguizbli.ttf”
“Segoe UI Bold (TrueType)”=“segoeuib.ttf”
“Segoe UI Bold Italic (TrueType)”=“segoeuibi.ttf”
“Segoe UI Emoji (TrueType)”=“seguiemj.ttf”
“Segoe UI Historic (TrueType)”=“seguihis.ttf”
“Segoe UI Italic (TrueType)”=“segoeuii.ttf”
“Segoe UI Light (TrueType)”=“segoeuil.ttf”
“Segoe UI Light Italic (TrueType)”=“segoeuili.ttf”
“Segoe UI Semibold (TrueType)”=“segoeuisb.ttf”
“Segoe UI Semibold Italic (TrueType)”=“segoeuisbi.ttf”
“Segoe UI Semilight (TrueType)”=“segoeuisl.ttf”
“Segoe UI Semilight Italic (TrueType)”=“segoeuisli.ttf”
“Segoe UI Symbol (TrueType)”=“seguisym.ttf”
You may be able to log off and log on to get them to become active. I rebooted, and that worked.
I upgraded to Cubase 13 (from 12).
Then discovered I couldn’t read the tiny fonts easily enough. And, disappointed, have gone back to v 12.
It’s 2024 - surely we can have scalable text!?!
Currently demoing CB 13 and would add this to my list of requested improvements, so include me in this group of visually challenged old farts using cubase.
Regards.
This works perfectly. For all those unable to see the tiny fonts in the user interface, this is the solution (at least on Windows).
Just upgraded 10.5 to 13, text way too small.
Please confirm the fix for windows? Thank you
What is the fix please?
If you go to the very top of this message board one of the users had what worked for me: enable HiDPI in the Cubase options and set the application scaling to something larger. This works for the application but not necessarily plugins:
edit->preferences-> under general enable HiDPI, and then choose a scaling factor from the drop down box.
Some users here are giving solutions that involve mucking around in the registry font settings, but I wouldn’t recommend this unless you really know what you’re doing.
Thank you, I’ll give that a go, I got lost in the registry posts so wasn’t sure exactly what worked for you.
What a shame though that we have to do this at all!