Skinnable interfaces for DAWs...

[Sundown]

Hey all,

 

I'd love to see major DAW manufacturers offer different skins for their software, or at a minimum, different color schemes. I just downloaded a demo of Cubase 10.5 and while it has some capabilities I don't have now with v6.5, the interface is dark. I much prefer the lighter tones of v6.5.

 

You can go into preferences and change a lot of the individual interface colors, but that's tedious at best. It would be great if there were simple global options for "bright", "dark", "medium", etc.

 

I know these companies spend quite a bit of time and money on interface design and aesthetics, so maybe true custom skins would be a much bigger endeavor. But I would prefer some different symbols for some of the Cubase controls.

 

Cubase isn't alone... It looks like Studio One and Logic both use a lot of dark tones and backgrounds. Pro Tools seems to be a bit more neutral.

 

Thoughts?

[KuruPrionz]

You made me look!!!!!

 

In Settings, Waveform Pro (11) has:

 

15 language options for people around the world.

 

The ability to select any font that is loaded in the computer system as the default font

 

8 different Color Schemes with light and dark variations and 3 grayscale settings plus a seperate "Use Low Detail Interface" setting for computers with limited RAM and processing power.

And a "Display Scale" percentage setting.

 

2 default sizes for plugins.

 

You can also choose all sorts of default parameters for the position and/or color of various functions.

 

And, how your meters respond.

 

So, I have no idea why your choice of DAW isn't that cool...

[Mike Rivers]

Reaper has dozens of skins, mostly contributed by users, many of which mimic famous famous consoles.

[Anderton]

Cubase isn't alone... It looks like Studio One and Logic both use a lot of dark tones and backgrounds. Pro Tools seems to be a bit more neutral.

 

Thoughts?

 

Actually, Studio One gives a great deal of flexibility in terms of luminance, coloring, bright/dark, contrast, etc., and saving them as presets. I find this very handy because I can use different settings for screen shots where contrast makes everything more legible, brightness and colors when things need to "pop" at seminars, and a darker vibe when working in my studio at night. Cakewalk is a DAW that offers extensive customization, including themes that can change the look completely. I came up with a black-and-white type thing to make the program look like an Oberheim SEM

[Sundown]

Well, it sounds like it might just be a Steinberg weakness. You can customize the color of everything with Cubase 10.5, but given how tedious that can be, I would actually prefer theme presets with customization. In the absence of that, it would be great if users could share color customizations that they have created.