Graphic design suggestions

[jb1]

I’m having some workflow problems since 10.
Due to the new graphic design I’m afraid.

Some suggestions:
The “having to disable / hide bits from the transport panel in order to make it fit” is a workflow killer. Why doesn’t it auto-resize into multiple rows, or rescale automaticly, whatever.
The “old” F2 Transport was easier to work with, looked better, and was more compact. Bring it back as an option please?
Same issue with the new toolboxes on the mixer and arrange window; (apart from to many confusing lookalike icons and symbols I can not get used to, but hey I can hoover!)
These should resize to multiple rows automaticly if needed, and also be saved/recalled with workspaces so you can create and recal different toolbar presets for mixing,editing in your workspaces.
Same goes for the design of the track name and buttons field. I have to adjust the with manualy to make things fit? and save presets? Ok…But hey, the size is not saved in the preset? really?
One more: activate “show part borders” in any editor and you cannot acces the timeline underneath the naming field anymore…

Some other things that seem weird to me, I don’t get the concept behind this;
Preset management: I create a sound on a mixerchannel, using inserts, aux sends and fader levels and save it as a preset. If I recall this preset, even in the same project, all aux settings and fader levels are gone. WHY? How am I supposed to recreate a sound if this is all missing?

If I create a multi-output VSTi (grooveagent SE?), add some plugins on the mixerchannels, set propper fader and aux levels, then save this VSTI as a userpreset, it is corrupted on recal. The extra outputs, inserts, aux levels are gone and the internal mixer looks corrupted.
“File>Export track” is a fix for both these problems, but the disadvantage of this way of working is that you wil have to build your own archive somewhere, also importing tracks is not as easily done as recalling a preset on a channel or vsti.

By the way, did you notice that Cubase is starting to look like the new Facebook layout, or is it the the other way around?
Anyway, hope this gets some attention and gets fixed.

[Lee_Batchelor]

JB, you make some interesting observations. One thing I find most difficult is the EXTREMELY confusing color management system. I can’t seem to get my head around it despite the numerous demo videos. It’s full of trap doors. There’s global settings and then individual settings but the color pallets don’t match. It’s as though both methods are drawing from two different tool boxes. Terrible!

I think the whole architecture (GUI included) of Cubase, HALion, and Groove Agent is designed around an engineering model versus a musician’s model. That is, if you’re not a recording engineer with years of onsite experience in the Control room, you’ll find Cubase very intimidating to the point of seeming counter-intuitive. Don’t get me wrong, it’s one of the best DAWS on the planet, if not the best, but it seems everything you try to do requires that you are an expert to start with, and then you have to advance further up the food chain. There’s just so much to learn that there’s little creativity left for what the program is designed to help you do – make music. Even the entry level, free versions that come with various Yamaha keyboards are quite daunting. When I look at some of the other DAWS, they seem so much simpler to navigate but they also have fewer tools.

I don’t know if Steinberg employs a technical writer but I’m almost positive they don’t. I happen to be a technical writer and technical writing instructor at the college level, and I can tell you Cubase and its documentation is designed around an expert audience. It’s as though Steinberg could care less about the novice or intermediate user. That’s probably not true either but it sure seems that way. They need to hire a technical writer to act as a usability expert and advocate for the users. Only then will the complaints about the GUI and other workflow issues disappear or become limited. I’ve written manuals for high-tech companies that produce far more sophisticated products than Cubase. Any company that produces these kinds of products without the help of a technical writer is only fooling themselves. Design engineers seldom understand user needs. Marketing people are in the same boat. That requires a specialist. This is not a plug for technical writers. It’s a plug for those who buy the products so Steinberg can be profitable.

End of rant.

[drdrdrdr]

@Lee Batchelor

JB, you make some interesting observations. One thing I find most difficult is the EXTREMELY confusing color management system. I can’t seem to get my head around it despite the numerous demo videos. It’s full of trap doors. There’s global settings and then individual settings but the color pallets don’t match. It’s as though both methods are drawing from two different tool boxes. Terrible!

I think the whole architecture (GUI included) of Cubase, HALion, and Groove Agent is designed around an engineering model versus a musician’s model. That is, if you’re not a recording engineer with years of onsite experience in the Control room, you’ll find Cubase very intimidating to the point of seeming counter-intuitive. Don’t get me wrong, it’s one of the best DAWS on the planet, if not the best, but it seems everything you try to do requires that you are an expert to start with, and then you have to advance further up the food chain. There’s just so much to learn that there’s little creativity left for what the program is designed to help you do – make music. Even the entry level, free versions that come with various Yamaha keyboards are quite daunting. When I look at some of the other DAWS, they seem so much simpler to navigate but they also have fewer tools.

I don’t know if Steinberg employs a technical writer but I’m almost positive they don’t. I happen to be a technical writer and technical writing instructor at the college level, and I can tell you Cubase and its documentation is designed around an expert audience. It’s as though Steinberg could care less about the novice or intermediate user. That’s probably not true either but it sure seems that way. They need to hire a technical writer to act as a usability expert and advocate for the users. Only then will the complaints about the GUI and other workflow issues disappear or become limited. I’ve written manuals for high-tech companies that produce far more sophisticated products than Cubase. Any company that produces these kinds of products without the help of a technical writer is only fooling themselves. Design engineers seldom understand user needs. Marketing people are in the same boat. That requires a specialist. This is not a plug for technical writers. It’s a plug for those who buy the products so Steinberg can be profitable.

End of rant.

This is true. Cubase certainly is not the most intuitive daw out there. But then there’s a lot of complexity to it so it’s challenging marrying those two things together. Cubase certainly needs some help in that area.

[greggybud]

Yes I don’t understand the transport bar changes. It looks ugly and if you include everything you might need an ultra-wide display.

@jb

Preset management: I create a sound on a mixerchannel, using inserts, aux sends and fader levels and save it as a preset. If I recall this preset, even in the same project, all aux settings and fader levels are gone. WHY? How am I supposed to recreate a sound if this is all missing?

It does not here, however I haven’t extensively tested it. Ever since export/import I have given up on it.

1. In Mix Console 1 right-click on an output channel> Save Track Preset.
2. Then a Save Track Preset box shows up and I save it. Then close Cubase
3. Start Cubase, select any Instrument track that has multiple outputs and choose any channel
4. In Mix Console 1 right-click on an output channel> Load Track Preset.
5. The selector box comes up, and I choose the preset I had just saved

Fader level, and all inserts get recalled. What I see missing is sends, and routing. Unless something has changed, I think this is documented correctly in the manual. Routing, sends etc was never intended to be included in the feature. However, as you mention, only saving inserts and fader levels IMO isn’t even worth the feature. It’s hard to remember what gets saved and what doesn’t over time especially if you don’t use the feature very often. For myself I never use this function any longer. Instead I use track export/import that does save this stuff however I agree it’s slower workflow or as easy.

I view all entire Cubase versions of preset saving as unreliable. I’m guessing it’s due to continual modifications and preset feature evolution over many years, plus I think people have simply given up and opted toward the reliable export/import?

And you didn’t even cover another method which I doubt many users are aware of today. The feature is Save Selected Channels and Load Selected Channels. It too has huge limitations. You have to remember the number of channels you saved in order to load it at a later time. For example if you saved 6 channels, then focus 5 channels, and use Load Selected it won’t work. Most importantly this feature is one of the few left where there is a difference between Track and Rack instruments…it only works with Instrument Racks…not Instrument tracks.

[Lee_Batchelor]

@drdrdrdr

This is true. Cubase certainly is not the most intuitive daw out there. But then there’s a lot of complexity to it so it’s challenging marrying those two things together. Cubase certainly needs some help in that area.

Thanks for the thumbs up, drdrdrdr. I fear that Cubase is going down the same path as Microsoft when they kept adding on new features to their program, Word. That program had a decent start against Word Perfect but soon ran out of appeal. Microsoft was forced into a war they didn’t want, and that was to update Word to compete with Word Perfect. It didn’t work. Microsoft Word became very shaky and as Microsoft added new features, users discovered that the program had been built on a weak foundation. By Word 2003, they had made some decent progress in fixing the program. Fast forward to 2007 where Microsoft completely changed Word. It was a disaster. Sure, sales were decent but to anyone who had to use Word for something more than just replacing the typewriter (technical writers for example), it was a disaster. It’s still somewhat shaky and unstable for large documents.

I just hope Steinberg isn’t going down the same path as Microsoft, by adding features that their decent earlier versions can’t support. Sometimes a company must wipe the slate clean and start from scratch. It costs big bucks to do that but that’s life in the big world.

[ihelper]

i am also learn graphics designing from very beginning

[Mehwish21]

@Lee Batchelor

JB, you make some interesting observations. One thing I find most difficult is the EXTREMELY confusing color management system. I can’t seem to get my head around it despite the numerous demo videos. It’s full of trap doors. There’s global settings and then individual settings but the color pallets don’t match. It’s as though both methods are drawing from two different tool boxes. Terrible!

I think the whole architecture (GUI included) of Cubase, HALion, and Groove Agent is designed around an engineering model versus a musician’s model. That is, if you’re not a recording engineer with years of onsite experience in the Control room, you’ll find Cubase very intimidating to the point of seeming counter-intuitive. Don’t get me wrong, it’s one of the best DAWS on the planet, if not the best, but it seems everything you try to do requires that you are an expert to start with, and then you have to advance further up the food chain. There’s just so much to learn that there’s little creativity left for what the program is designed to help you do – make music. Even the entry level, free versions that come with various Yamaha keyboards are quite daunting. When I look at some of the other DAWS, they seem so much simpler to navigate but they also have fewer tools.

I don’t know if Steinberg employs a technical writer but I’m almost positive they don’t. I happen to be a technical writer and technical writing instructor at the college level, and I can tell you Cubase and its documentation is designed around an expert audience. It’s as though Steinberg could care less about the novice or intermediate user. That’s probably not true either but it sure seems that way. They need to hire a technical writer to act as a usability expert and advocate for the users. Only then will the complaints about the GUI and other workflow issues disappear or become limited. I’ve written manuals for high-tech companies that produce far more sophisticated products than Cubase. Any company that produces these kinds of products without the help of a technical writer is only fooling themselves. Design engineers seldom understand user needs. Marketing people are in the same boat. That requires a specialist. This is not a plug for technical writers. It’s a plug for those who buy the products so Steinberg can be profitable.

End of rant.

Basically, many designers are proud of the quality of their mock-ups / sketches / blueprints, etc., and make sure they are perfect pixels. They then fail to guarantee that the product is constructed to their design. So the final product is not amazing while they shout about designing something amazing. The end user does not ever see the mocks / sketches / prototypes, so it is a failed design technically.

Similarly, if a programmer writes some really crap cool code in development that is lightweight, neat and easy for future developers to manage, that’s great, but no one sees the code, they see the product.