The horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the application (Main) window is a pain. I have pretty much trained myself out of using it but it rears in ugly head at least once a day. There are several ways to navigate through the project - event markers with the key pad numbers, song arranger, scroll in a blank space in the arranger window, use + and - keys with shift to go faster, if necessary.
It would be really wonderful if the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the arranger window would grow in length with the song or to be able to set the number of bars estimated for the length of the project. The scroll bar handle could then be set to react to a click somewhere in the scroll bar with the center of the arrange window going to the approximate position in the song. Click the middle of the bar, and the middle of the song is brought to the middle of the window Now, when you click in the middle of the bar it might jump to bar 1200. Annoying.
As the song grows the proportionality of horizontal scroll bar for the window grows. Having the song 150 bars long and 5,000 empty bars after that, makes no sense. There could be a option to configure the scroll bar to how the user likes it from the number of bars to leaving it as it currently is. It would be really good to be able to start a session by setting the scroll bar length to 200 bars for the average home recording user and be able to rely on the scroll bar getting you close to where you want to go quickly by clicking on the scroll bar proportionate to where you want to go, i.e. half way.
The user should be able to drag the elevator handle and drag it to where they want to go with almost zero guess work. The way it is now, you move that little elevator handle a few millimeters and it jumps 500 bars. This new suggested functionality would reduce the number of times you take your hand off of the mouse. Just that part would be outstanding.
If you really want to consider some other possible workflow functions, red triangles could be placed on the application window scroll bars where the markers on the marker track are located, with or without a number.
Additionally, maybe yellow comment markers could be added to the scroll bars so that comments can be written about mixing or editing fixes at the yellow markers during auditioning editing, mixing, new ideas etc. The user can add the yellow markers during the first few auditions of the piece right where the work needs to be done. The yellow comment markers dirext the workflow with the goal of clearing away all the yellow markers. When all the yellow markers are gone, the song should be finished.
This workflow upgrade would be huge and significantly better than adding notes on a piece of paper, or in the Mix Counsel channel strip note section or in the notes part of the inspector.
The yellow triangles could have a function where the user can add his own comments to a dropdown list of common phrases or single words that can be selected for that comment and shorten the note input time. Harsh, dull, masked, muddy, K / B conflict etc. come to mind. The beauty would be that the yellow triangle would be located at the point where the attention is needed and doesn’t need to be remembered because it is clearly marked for attention.
Compared to what Cubase programmers are capable of, this update should be a fairly simply addition says he who know nothing about programming at all. Lol.
Adding a drop down menu right on the scroll bar is preferred but options could be added to the Preferences Setup. Any of these suggestions would be an outstanding upgrade. I have not seen a DAW with the ability to add notes at the key parts of the song. It would set Cubase even more apart from the competition.