Cubase’s Settings window is one of the biggest (in terms of # of settings, not size ) and most elaborate among the DAWs - I think only Reaper’s is bigger? And it’s changing all the time between versions. Also, some things (e.g. transport behavior) are in the menus on top, not in Settings.
It’s often confusing where things are, especially because they’re not always named intuitively (admittedly - this is difficult to get right).
Anyway, a step forward would be some sort of Search function that would highlight the sections & specific items matching the search term. Like there is for keyboard shortcut, for example.
Well, the problem at hand is that the settings dialog is still a remnant from Cubase SX days and imho is long overdue for a complete overhaul, like the other dialogs.
It is beyond me why they changed all the color customizations in the old dialog without doing a whole rewrite, they have their new widget framework, the data structure behind can stay the same, it cannot that much work for an experienced programmer? I mean, since Cubase 6 they rewrote and redesigned the mix console window at least twice, which must have been so much more work…
I just had the same thought this weekend when I was searching in the settings dialog for the option to automatically generate the audio preview when closing a project. I didn’t find it there, but that’s another story…
Yep, sometimes I have to go 3 to 4 times through all the settings before I find what I’m looking for. Maybe it’s dementia but I feel like I’m getting lost there more and more often with each new version.
Btw. All Cubase settings together are like just one page of settings in Reaper
The placement of the Settings and top menu is really messy, though, to be fair, many of the options could logically fit in multiple places. Once, I was thinking about how they could reorganise the settings in a way that made sense, and all I got out of it was a headache
And yeah, Reaper has way too many options. My brain can’t deal with it. I would spend my time tweaking the settings instead of making music
And there there are some specific settings in the color setup dialog, or the automation dialog, studio setup, audio connections… all spread across the whole place. Yeah, maybe there was an idea behind that, but it is hard to imagine…
Of course, putting it all in one mega preferences dialog has its own drawbacks, too (reaper was already mentioned as a bad example), but there could be one solution: a global search bar (like e.g. Visual Studio Code or some IDEs have), where you can type in anything you want, settings, commands, file names etc, and it shows you the respective locations or actions of thoe, and you simply select it and the fitting dialog opens. I think Dorico has something similar with the jump bar, I don’t know whether it is for settings, too, or just for commands.
This would be high on my wish list for the next Cubase version. No more manually searching through all the menus and dialogs and whatnot…
) and most elaborate among the DAWs - I think only Reaper’s is bigger? And it’s changing all the time between versions. Also, some things (e.g. transport behavior) are in the menus on top, not in Settings.
but I feel like I’m getting lost there more and more often with each new version.
