I’ve been very happily working on 5.1 for a while now and upgraded now in many ways just to support Steinberg so that Cubase carries on being a great DAW. However…
I have a nice bright, sunny colour scheme on 5.1 but 6 seems to default to grey and er… more grey. I’ve played around with the Preferences but it’s still very gloomy looking. Is there a way of importing the look of 5.1 into 6?
Any help appreciated.
Windle
iMac 27" i5 3.6 GHz, 12GB RAM, 10.6.6
(Edited title as it’s really about the whole look of 6 rather than just the colours. 08/02/11)
I just turned the color intensity control up in the preferences, and then the brightness a little. But I have already tuned it back down somewhat. Then event colours were much clearer somehow. But the old (fashioned) bright blue is still in there.
I copied my settings for 5.1 in the Appearance - Work Area and it gets closer but the background is still grey rather than off-white and the fonts on the tracks are definitely harder to read. Smaller relative to the track (especially with a big MIDI template) and less distinct - almost a fuzzy font.
One of the great principles of a new version is that change is good. Well, sometimes it isn’t and sadly this is a change in the wrong direction for me.
Options are good though - new fonts, greys or a “Classic” look. Why not even VST5, SX1, 3, 4 or 5 look to choose from as a basic starting point?
As we’re looking at this stuff for hours upon hours then it makes sense to be able to make it as pleasant for the individual. Logic is a grim experience for the lack of colour and it looks like Cubase is following them rather than leading.
The more I look at it, the more it’s the new look basic fonts on the tracks that seem to be rather small and indistinct against the slightly greyer backgrounds.
There’s probably a little bit of Windows vs. Mac look as well muddying the issue.
I’ll fiddle and I’ll live with it but maybe wish for a choice of overall look in the next update/version.
Here’s a side by side using identical settings in General Appearance.
The Cubase 6 look is far less distinct about fonts, borders, backgrounds. I’d like the option of more definition.
^
Hm. Fuzzy fonts and grid lines in the arrange area in the C6 jpg.
In the other parts of the screen, where the white on black fonts have changed to grey on black (“No Object Selected”) or dark grey on light grey (“Touch”), it seems, to me, harder to read. And (perhaps due simply to the smaller size?) I think my eyes have to stay a little longer on “Signature”, “Tempo”, “Piccolo”, etc in the C6 than in the C5 jpg. In the C5 jpg, the text height is already less than the (given) height of the “m” & “s” buttons, so I wonder why it would be made even less in the C6 jpg - to allow more characters in the horizontal space, perhaps? Is there an option to use a slightly bigger font for “Piccolo”, etc?
Back to the arrange area, can the user change the grey on grey “ALL MIDI” and “WOODWINDS” to black on grey, as it is in the C5 jpg? - I’d find that more readable.
And, actually, in spite of being quite large, the “1.1.1.0” seems somehow fuzzy to me (though the C5 jpg has nothing to compare with it).
I hope this hasn’t been a case of Steinberg giving priority to the “look” of the screen, rather than the legibility of text. Some forum posts have been praising the look. Has there been a superficial improvement in “style” at the expense of clarity?
And and now I see that HUGE black strip (showing “No Object Selected”) that someone was complaining about in another thread. Is that just a criminal waste of space, I wonder, or does SB have plans for filling it with useful info requiring that height?
Definitely less clarity on the main arrange page and I can’t find too much more in ways of customising the look and sizes of fonts. Happy to be proven wrong though…
