Yes, that’s what it’s like since Cubase 15 came about last fall.
If I open ARA Extensions of Parts from different Tracks in Cubase, that have different colours, say 1 Part each from 3 separate Tracks with different colours, they will in SpectraLayers 15 ARA all show up as white in the spectrogram. All Layers will be white.
And if I try to change to other colours SL it will tell me I can’t change the colour of an external layer (well, which is fine since it has never been possible).
This makes it a pita to edit multiple Parts in SL ARA since I can’t tell one Layer from another.
It happens when I open only one Part as well
It was the same with SL12 but I thought I would actualize the problem again (3rd time here and in the Cubase forum). I hoped it was fixed in SL13 but it ’s not
I believe the problem came when Cubase changed the behaviour of the Folders’ colour scheme in Cubase 15.
Somewhere there’s a bug that causes Cubase 15 and SpectraLayers to not cooperate accurately. Who is responsible for this, @Robin or the Cubase team?
In Cubase 14 and Nuendo 14 it works fine.
I’m on a Mac Studio Max 64 GB and MacOS 15.7.4.
Hi @Marshall what would be the simplest step by step to repro the issue, starting from a blank project in Cubase ?
The issue is likely coming from Cubase though, as SpectraLayers only passes the colors it gets from the host to the layers…
Hi @Robin!
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Create a blank project in Cubase 15, use a Steinberg Template, e.g. “Stereo Mastering”.
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Duplicate the empty Track called “Stereo Master” that is already there. If the first Track is turquoise, make the second one red.
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Import any audio onto the turquoise Track.
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Right click the Part you just created by importing audio, select Extensions>SpectraLayers.
= In the SpectraLayers ARA window that opens the Layer colour is white, as is the spectrogram accordingly. Should be turquoise.
Undo this in Cubase 15; the SpectraLayers window will close.
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Import some other audio onto the other (red) Track in Cubase 15.
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Open Extension>SpectraLayers for both Parts that you now have, by selecting them and right click one of them to get to the Extensions>SpectraLayers menu item.
= The SpectraLayers ARA window that will open now have both Parts as white Layers with a white spectrogram representing these Layers. Should be one turquoise and one red Layer and they should be represented in the spectrogram as turquoise and red.
Since they are both white I can’t discriminate between them when editing in SpectraLayers.
So it seems Cubase 15 isn’t reporting the colors correctly to SpectraLayers, or SpectraLayers doesn’t read the reported colors correctly.
Same issue in SL 13.0.10.
Noone that can repro this problem? Is it only me?
Hello Marshall you might remember i replied to another post of yours on this issue quite a while ago and at that time my spectralayers pro in ARA was displaying the correct cubase track colours.However i too am now experiencing this problem on my setup and trying to work out whats causing the issue.I cant work out if this is a Cubase or a Spectralayers problem but i have found a couple of work arounds which do get the cubase track colours to show in SL when Composite Layers View is turned off instead of the dreaded white only view.
The Pic 1 below shows whats happening when i create a new audio track and set its colour to green.Next i drop an audio file onto the track and it automatically inherits the track colour green.Then i add the Spectralayers extension ,switch Composite Layers View off and as you see i get a white or light grey layer colour instead of the cubase track colour.This light grey colour is actually the “Track Type Default Color” which is set in the cubase preferences shown below in Pic 3.So SL seems to be totally ignoring the current track colour and reverting to this default colour.
Pic 1
This first work around seems to work well and is the only option available for cubase tracks that have already been created ( past projects ) .At least you will get coloured layers back in your SL but it wont be the colours of the cubase track it will be the colours of the events on that track.In Pic 2 below if you make sure the audio event is selected go to the event colour palette and select any colour you like and this colour will then change the layer and waveform colour within SL.Sync between track and event colours will be lost but there is nothing from stopping you from chosing the green colour from the event colour palette so it matches the track colour.If you try to re-sync the track and event colours by selecting the “Set Event Color to Track Color” from the event colour palette the layer and waveform colour in SL will change colour to the light grey colour again as shown in Pic 1.
Pic 2
This second work around is much better but it will only work on newly created audio tracks in Cubase.In Pic 3 below you need to open the cubase preferences screen and look for the “Track Type Default Colors” option in the left hand panel.In the right hand panel you then need to click the downward triangle icon to the right of the “Audio” parameter and this will bring up 3 faders for adjusting the colour of the default audio track colour.It seems the main culprit for this bug is the bottom fader which is set to 65 in the picture and you need to set this value to zero ( fader to the far left ).Make sure you then click apply and then the ok button to exit the preferences screen.Now when you create any new audio tracks they will default to the colour black like in Pic 4 below. Strangely from here on the bug seems to disappear and the ARA connection works normally and the cubase track colours should appear in SL when you add the SL extension to the audio events.In Pic 5 below i created a new audio track which was default colour black and then changed it to light blue.Adding an audio sample to the track turned the audio event also into light blue.I next added the SL extension and the correct track colour now appears in the layer and waveforms views.You can now even change the cubase track colour and it will sync both the audio event and SL into the same colour just like it should do.
Pic 3
Pic 4
Pic 5
Like i say i never suffered from this bug before so somewhere along the line its crept in through either a cubase update or a windows update or something else.I did uninstall SL and re-installed but that didnt fix it and i also reset the factory defaults for Cubase preferences but that also had no effect.Ive updated my current PC specs below.
Current Specs:
Cubase 15 Pro Version 15.0.21 Build 252 (x64)
Spectralayers Pro 12.0.40 Build 433 (x86_64)
OS Name Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
Version 25H2
OS Build 26200.8875
Processor 12th Gen Intel(R) Core™ i9-12900KF, 3200 Mhz, 16 Core(s), 24 Logical Processor(s)
BaseBoard Product ROG STRIX Z690-F GAMING WIFI
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 64.0 GB
Audio Interface Steinberg UR22C Driver Version 2.1.6.6
GPU NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti with driver Ver 591.86
Wow! Yes, I remember your nice post, last November wasn’t it?
This is great news! Thank you for your extensive efforts in finding a solution and pinning down where the Cubase 15 bug is! Obviously on both Windows and MacOS computers.
I will try your workarounds first thing tomorrow. Thanks again!
I’ve tried both workarounds now. They both work!
The 2nd workaround, where setting the bottom fader in “Track Type Default Colours” to “0” (fader to the far left) works for already created audio tracks, inside folders or outside doesn’t matter. I don’t even have to set the fader to “0”, it works for values up to “25” inclusive.
Oh happy day!
@Elderman: Is it OK if I post this in the Cubase section of this Forum, or if you want to? It’s not a solution but it’s a clue for the devs team regarding how to fix this bug.
yes please do post it on the cubase forum maybe some of the devs will work out whats causing the issue.The value 25 on that bottom fader must be the tipping point where the bug begins. Im glad its worked for you as the cubase track colours are vital when Composite Layers View is turned off as this view is totally useless when all the layers are white.I found option 2 didnt seem to work on already created tracks and had to use option 1 but i will re-check it to see if your right.
