Really? Does it have to be that big?
Or they could just make the column width resizable as you drag the edge with all the content getting smaller the narrower you make it.
I enjoyed that video! 100% agree.
Mike.
Ditto 
Or they could just make the column width resizable as you drag the edge with all the content getting smaller the narrower you make it.
Well, that’s pretty much what I’m suggesting. I just used two static pictures to show the before/after results. Setting up an animation to show 3 seconds of element resizing would’ve been too time consuming. But you can see that the footprint of the non QC Rack view could be squished to buy back a fair amount screen real estate without compromising its general “look”. Plenty of other things could be done as well. This was a band aid suggestion.
Personally, I would have preferred the more compact old style fixed slot Rack with the addition of an edit button per slot designed to pop up a single editor QC view we now have. Similar to the Pan editor mechanism.
Point is, there are probably any number of ways to keep Steinberg’s new rack functionality in place in a more screen-efficient package. I mean there’s gotta be someone over there who thinks this thing really is oversized for the job it does.
Personally I don’t care where the option to remove the rack is, as long as there is such an option. I hate the rack, always have, never use it, never will, so I just turn it off and forget it! Problem solved and more track space 
Wow. Great presentation, thank you. As I dont use rack instruments, I use Mediabay a lot. And I like it docked very mutch. I wish Steinberg go that way for docked edit windows on bottom (where chord pad is beautifully docked) - you can resize it verticaly. Imagine that you can open Key editor in this place (as option of course). Yoy can choose in preferrences to behavior double click on event: 1. edit in place, 2. key editor (floating), key editor (docked at bottom screen). And others windows can be docked there: sample editor, pool, tempo editor, settings edit window, list editor, score editor, mini mixer, etc, etc.
But why is it so important for me (docked edit windows) ? Because when working with midi/sample in Cubase on Microsoft Windows 7, I can’t click enywhere outside this edit window - because editor will hide under arrange window ! Every time it happens I go crazy. Many times I edit midi notes and while key editor is open i’d like to listening other track to compare. But I can’t click that other track to solo, because key editor will hide. Ad then I must click again to bring it back to front. But witch one was that event what Im tweaked ? Oh dear…For me this is workflow KILLER !
Please Steinberg team, consider to make dockable editors at bottom of screen like Chord Pad is now.
Especially the button to hide that thing! Of course we are all shortcuttersbut to move to the other side of the screen to close the window on the very right isn´t very convenient. Just add (in addition to the menue on the top right corner) little arrows to the collapsable parts of the workspace…
Agreed. Generally dockable panes have UI buttons for both undocking and closing.
I am really sad to see that the entire rack is not only still here but further incorporated into the program.
I would love to believe that some of these software improvements and under the hood optimizations would allow the UI designers to be flexible with making changes to this sort of thing. It shouldn’t be something to ‘rewrite’ and ‘re-program’. Yes that’s coming from a complete non-programmer, but it makes sense to me to be foolproof going forward.
I agree that there has to be someone on staff and above who disagrees with the size of that window, it is the biggest thing in Cubase. Just refresh your memory and take a look at a Cubase 5 instrument rack, and tell me we didn’t just take a step back.
The inspector on the other hand is seeing light improvements every .5 versions.
What is the deal here?
I haven’t seen too many folks raving over the increased size of their VSTi list, I did not see any overwhelming feature requests for it. But they went and attached it further into Cubase. What does that mean. Are they going to design another complex show/hide dialogue (mix console/arrangement) to control things? Is this the way we’re going?
I really prefer a more hands intuitive on approach. Drag to move things around, (X) to close what I don’t want, perhaps (-) to minimize what I want to hide.
I had a realisation the other day… I wondered why everything on-screen was getting bigger! Years ago I upgraded my monitors and graphics to 1920x1200x2 (2 monitors) so I could view as much info as possible. Now though everyone has hi-res monitors too, including most laptops, so the developers are making everything bigger to use up that extra space. Is that why the instrument rack is bigger, or why modern website takes up the whole of one of my hi-res monitors with a single image I wonder??? Hmm, I need to go to 2 x 4K monitors then to get everything to fit back on the screen like it used to!! So, its not the size of the instrument rack its the resolution of your monitors - we’re just behind the times
Mike.
+1
you had me at “ding!” 
Nice vid.
+1
I thought I’d bump this because C8.0.20 will be arriving sometime soon and that will probably be the last update before Steinberg starts it’s annual fund drive with C8.5 (or maybe C9).
I’m really hoping that someone over there finally gets the idea that the program’s screen real estate must be better managed than what we have now. Really…does this stuff have to be that huge? The irony is that these panes are humongous and the scrolling mechanisms are inefficiently teeny. This really needs a serious overhaul.
Click Me
Chord pads are way to big as well, used in conjunction with instrument rack nearly all track editing area is lost!