Improve Track Picture Assignment and Editing Workflow in Cubase

Feature Request: Improve Track Picture Assignment and Editing Workflow in Cubase

Current situation

Assigning and customizing track pictures in Cubase is unnecessarily time-consuming, especially when working on large projects.

Currently, the Track Pictures window must be closed after each assignment. To customize the picture of the next track, users have to select that track, reopen the window, choose a picture, adjust its zoom, brightness and color settings, and confirm the changes before moving on to the next track.

This repetitive workflow quickly becomes frustrating when working on projects containing 50, 100, 150 tracks or more.

Track pictures are a valuable visual organizational tool, but the current workflow makes it unnecessarily tedious to use them effectively.

Suggested improvements

1. Keep the Track Pictures window open

Allow the Track Pictures window to remain open while selecting different tracks in the Project window.

Ideally, selecting another track would automatically update the window to display that track’s currently assigned picture and its settings, allowing users to assign or edit pictures without repeatedly closing and reopening the window.

Users should be able to move from one track to another, make the necessary adjustments, and confirm their changes without interrupting the workflow.

2. Save and reuse picture-specific display settings

Track pictures appear to be standard image files, with additional display adjustments such as zoom, track color and color intensity applied within Cubase.

It would be extremely useful if Cubase could save these adjustments as reusable settings, rather than requiring users to configure them manually every time they assign a picture.

Ideally, Cubase should support two levels of customization:

  • Picture-specific defaults: Allow users to save preferred zoom, color and intensity settings for each picture in their library, making these settings available across different projects.

  • Track-specific overrides: Allow individual tracks to use different settings for the same picture without modifying its saved defaults.

For example, a user might want to use the same guitar icon on several tracks, but display it with different zoom levels or color settings depending on the track.

This would make it possible to build a consistent library of customized track pictures while retaining the flexibility to adjust individual tracks when necessary.

3. Enable consecutive track editing

The entire process of assigning and customizing track pictures should be designed to support consecutive editing.

Ideally, users should be able to:

  1. Select a track in the Project window.

  2. Choose a picture or keep the currently assigned one.

  3. Adjust its zoom, brightness, color and color intensity.

  4. Confirm the changes.

  5. Select the next track and repeat the process immediately, without closing the Track Pictures window.

The window should remain accessible throughout this process, and previously saved settings should be preserved whenever appropriate.

A dedicated, non-modal Track Pictures editor with track navigation could also be an effective solution, provided it allows users to select tracks and edit their pictures without repeatedly opening and closing dialogs.

Why this matters

Track pictures can significantly improve visual organization and navigation in complex Cubase projects. However, when a project contains dozens or hundreds of tracks, the current assignment and editing process involves far too many repetitive actions.

Keeping the Track Pictures window open, preserving reusable picture settings, and allowing individual track customizations would make this feature considerably more efficient and practical.

These improvements would be particularly valuable for users who regularly work with large sessions and rely on consistent visual identification to organize instruments, groups, buses and other track types.

The goal is not simply to reduce the number of clicks, but to make track picture management a fluid and efficient part of the Cubase workflow.

Thank you for considering this feature request.

For other reasons I gave up on Track Pictures long ago, so this behavior may have changed since then. But at least in Windows (don’t know about Mac) you could use Explorer to navigate to where Cubase keeps its Track Picture library, in appdata I think(?). Then you could drag images directly from Explorer and drop them onto a Track Picture ‘slot’ in the MixConsole. No need to open the Cubase Track Picture Window at all.