I am another one who would like some lighter options. Especially white/silver faders - brings back nice memories of desks I worked on in the 80s.
However, a bit of a work around is to go for a pleasant framing colour (I have headed towards Trident desks a little), and then a much brighter background for the editors and project window - those allow much brighter than the general theme settings do.
The result works nicely in both a well-lit room and a darkened room.
Nice! How did you modify the background colors in the inspector, media bay, etc?
Nevermind, I fingered it out. Preferences > User Interface > Color Schemes > Custom Color Scheme.
I just used the various settings in Preferences. Start with the Custom Colour Scheme, then work your way down.
I have no problem with there being an optional light theme, but I prefer the dark. I think the biggest issue is that the UI is ugly, outdated, and inconsistent.
On Mac Pool burning eyes to ashes. It is so white and everything else is dark. I have to use sunglasses.
Would be great if Cubase Pro programmers were allowed, or encourage to create a more pro looking interface. Maybe something like this…
Or maybe like this…
Higher an ergonomic designer. Make it happen. There is no real excuse not to. Be more of community service, not just profit oriented. But, if you must only think profit oriented, remember, if you make a great looking DAW, people will switch to it and use it more. Cubase will become more popular, people will complain less about features, and Yamaha will make more money. Think about it like that if you must. But, if you can, just do us a solid and give us an interface that works. The current Cubase interface looks uninspiring and is cumbersome. Either make it less cumbersome, or make it look better, or if you have it in you, maybe both. Please.
You’re asking for a more professional interface but you show references with lots of skeumorphic designs (faking hardware) which is pretty much as un-professional as you can get. I think you might be confusing the term professional with what you like.
The Cubase interface is no better or worse than any other major DAW in it’s class. I personally like it. I think it looks tidy and is well layed out for the most part. I find it very efficient to work with. It does have some quirks here and there and quite a lot of old legacy stuff but that’s not weird considering its age.
Yea agreed - it personal taste. You’re able to change the colour scheme to make the interface lighter.
There are hangovers from previous versions interface designs that I think are ugly, but in general I think Cubase is an attractive DAW. I’ll often see Cubase images used as headers in online articles where they put feature sets DAW’s head to head.
Ha ha! The pictures were examples, ideas, not the endpoint request. I am looking for forward looking progress. I am looking for choice in design. Choice in esthetics. If the current Cubase Pro v12 interface is the best looking design the Cubase team can come up with, well than that is disappointing, and frankly depressing. At least give us a better choice of how we apply colors to the interface. I want my mixer a different color than my project window. Is that asking too much? Come on!
By the way, Cubase is very much a skeumorphic DAW. That is how it made it’s name, and how it makes it’s money. There are different ways to work audio (Ableton, Bitwig, Reason, etc), but Cubase choose a skeuomorph of the analogue audio workflow. I am just asking the current programmers of Cubase to let an A class designer do it right. What will be the harm in that?
If Cubase wants to veer away from an analogue skeumorphic, and do something completely amazing and new, I am all for it. I am all in, let’s rock n’ roll. But, that’s not what I am seeing.
What I do see is the Cubase design team shackled to a budget that prevents them from doing what they need to do. So, I am not blaming them for what they have come up with. I am asking corporate management, out of respect, to please pay attention to this issue. If a total redesign is not in the cards, OK, I can understand that. But at least let us change the colors on the interface to make it work better for us. The current interface color scheme is not working. Let this post of numerous comments be the proof of this.
I think Studio Ones interface can look horrid at times. Theres certainly really good things about it, and looks better than Cubase in some areas, but its got its own problems too. I believe the novelty of Studio One is wearing off and youre going soon have threads just like this popping up on the Presonus forums…
Studio One has lots of issues. I tried it, and there are some likable things, but Cubase is way more advanced. So, we’re here, talking about design in the Cubase forum, not Presonus. 
I love the colour scheme of Cubase. It’s perfect.
What I don’t like is the tiny, cluttered design in some of the VSTs like groove agent. Also the weird blurry ancient looking racks and control room.
But the colours are perfect.
I also want a much brigher color scheme.
You know, I’m coming from the Atari ST days when Cubase looked “crystal clear” on a “high res mono monitor” screen like this:
These were the days!
Loved that simple toolbox too!
But seriously. What is up with all the hype of “dark themes” these days?
And all the flat design?
It’s like the ideal have changed to the dullest thing you can imagine.
Like Eastern Germany, DDR, 1983 with all the grey, dull, simple, cheap styles.
I mean, this “dark theme” thing I guess is people extrapolating the “night time mode” when the screen got darker because people felt it made their sleep cycles sync better to “Dark is always better for you” all the time.
Well it isn’t!
There is a reason for why word processors, Excell, the Web etc work almost exclusively with white background and white text.
The contrast is great and it actually takes less strain on our eyes.
Remember the old CRT:s who mostly were grey or white?
That was ergonomically motivated by the simple fact that a dark monitor was putting more strain to the eyes. I think it even got into one of the points in the standards for marking ergonomic good equipment (Whatever that was called).
So it is better to use a light background with dark text on it.
And then we have this obsession with “flat design”.
Apple started this trend (of course, the st-pid trendy crowd) with some Ios version.
It the got ported to Windows 10 (or was it even in 8?) witih the extremely dull flat design.
They have backtracked somewhat, but Windows 11 is still ugly as a dog compared to Windows 7!
At least give us the option to use light themes in Cubase!
Wow! I can remember upgrading from Pro24 to Cubase on my Atari 1040. It was a plunge to step forward to learn a new software application from one I could operate with my eyes closed! I recall pausing and staring with amazement at the new radical ‘track’ and ‘parts’ horizontal layout we all take for granted today! It looked like nothing else on the market and felt so, so polished! Thanks for the memory! 
I get a close feeling these days with the Wavelab 11 GUI. It too ‘feels’ tight and crafted.
Yeah. Same thing for me, but I had just started with Pro-24 and never got into it. To cumbersome for me.
For me there were three fantastic “revelations”, “Ah! moments” with Cubase:
As you said the visual arranger where you actually could see all the parts and then there were an additional “Ah! moment” when I discovered that I could mark a bunch of them by just dragging a rectangle with the mouse and then move them wherever you wanted. That was just mindblowing!
The right click of the mouse that brought up the funny looking toolbox with almost comic visual representation of things like a scissor, the glue-bottle etc. So much faster than bringing up the topdown menu and choosing the thing there. The continued visual representaton that, for example, when you used the scissor on a part it actually got cut into two halves! Just fantastic!
The Piano roll in key edit and how easy it was to work with. How you also had a lane at the bottom where you could actually draw controllers like velocity. “staggering” drum rolls bonanza when I began use that, of course!
I have never experienced a time after that moment when I tried Cubase for the first time that I felt that “this is like in the future”, I mean as impressed by it as can be. Not with Photoshop. Not with anything else!
My personal is experience is exactly the other way around than what you are stating. My eyes (and brain) get tired faster if I have to look at a bright screen compared to a dark screen.
SkeuOmorphic 
