Not a lot has changed from 20 years ago IMO…
How did you get hold of a leaked image of Cubase 12?
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It works and people are use to it. Change for the sake of change which alienates loyal users is not good.
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And new customers?
I didn’t say it shouldn’t change but not radically overnight. I bet the biggest revenue is the updates each year of existing users compared to new users. Surely new users are buying into the Cubase ethos otherwise they would choose a different DAW.
a few years ago I was so sick of Cubase. I was desperate to change DAW. During the last 20 years, I have tried quite a few DAW’s as well. I started to explore, but after 2 weeks I was once again satisfied to start Cubase as my workhorse. I think Steinberg has made very significant changes during the years, yet the changes have been subtle - and most of them have been for the better. The only thing that worries me is I from time to time run into problems with plugins. When I contact the plugin creators they all point to Steinberg coding for the problems. And if you have been a Cubase user for 20 years something tells me Cubase is doing something correctly?
Could you elaborate a bit? Comparing to the first picture, I’d say that conceptually, many things remain. The toolbar, the overview, the inspector, the track list, the project window. All are there. Shouldn’t they be? Why change those? I feel at home looking at this picture, I could immediately use this, and I’ve never used SX in my life. It just seems familiar. That’s a plus in my book. (Plus, I’d love to be able to choose so much white for my background, 11 can’t go so low, the lowest setting is greyish white.)
If we’re talking about “graphics”, then yes there’s much that could be done. Resizable elements (zones, panels, toolbars) modern tooltips etc etc… I don’t know why progress is so slow on this front.
You haven’t said what you find wrong with it.
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For me the GUI is closed to perfect. We can change colors, fader knobs, channelstrips, configure the toolbars, etc. There are misbehaviours, yes, but this is another story.
The inspector needs an overhaul, changing the order or hide of the inspector parts.
Steinberg finds a good way between 2d and 3d.
I am quite satisfied with the general continuity of Cubase GUI. From my point of view there have been important enhancements, however integrated in a way that was easy to understand. The changes mainly improved the usability on a 17“ Notebook.
On the technical level it was annoying, that Cubase had difficulties with handling multiple monitors with different high resolution for a long time. My current workaround is setting all monitors to the same resolution settings and scaling to 100% in the OS settings, so losing display Quality in scaled down the 4K monitors.
Anyway; that seemed to be the only way to handle many plug-ins.
I hope that the concept of the GUI will be kept in upcoming releases.
Is this a joke?
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What do you mean?
I am expecting that the GUI will change soon and not for the best. Look at Wavelab, SpetralLayers, the Apple-Like GUI is for my taste a step back in useability. Even smaller controls, none-standard (at least on Windows System) boxes, Windows titles etc.
And I am using StudioOne 5 Artist and can’t say that their GUI is better. It is a complete flat design, yes, but I often struggle with the very small fonts etc.
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I have used Cubase since V3 (at least) and have enjoyed the evolution of the gui interface, and the generally sensible solutions to adding function to the application. I wouldn’t want any radical changes, as I’m very productive with the way the interface works currently. I think new users would find the environment both simple and intuitive enough at first use, and sophisticated enough for advanced use.
Imo the new Cubase UI is one of the best of all DAWs currently out there. It looks modern and crisp, with the right mix of flat and 3D design elements. Also skeumorphism where it is appropriate like mixer faders or vintage inspired stock plugins, etc. It has a high color contrast compared to others and is easy on the eyes. There are numerous options to setup the UI in the arranger and the mixer view to your needs. What I just like to see would be plugin resize for 4k monitors in the future (also for bitmap based plugin UIs like Retrologue for instance).
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Cubie’s UI is pretty good in terms of its layout and discoverability. It falls very short in hit-accuracy of its buttons though.
I don’t know what possessed them to make the scrollbars and zoom scales so tiny, and other items I can’t remember right now.
Overall the GUI isn’t broken. I like the idea that someone could leave for another app for over a decade, then come back and continue almost like nothing happened.
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I am a Cubase user since SX3, although I like to revisit this old user interface, I wouldn’t want to go back to such a Design.
I like the current graphical interface, it is simple, efficient and probably low on the CPU. However, just a little relief could make it more attractive.
Also, I do not believe that investing time and money in this aspect of the software is a priority. There are a lot of other issues that need to be addressed.
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yeah like when I’m clicking in the upper area of that thin menu bar it just misses the toggle. It’s like 
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Yep. All. The. Time.
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I just miss the event gradients, tbh. Everything is too flat and static looking now.