FX and Sends, Bypass'd and not

[Starship Krupa]

One of my perpetual annoyances regarding Cakewalk is my difficulty in visually distinguishing when FX (and sends) are engaged or bypassed either at a rack or individual level. Variations in grey scale aren't really enough for me. I would like a nice bright green for "engaged." Maybe a dark green for otherwise. Or blue.

Rather than just grumble, I have decided to attempt to address it via creating some new button sets for the FX (and sends). If they work, I'll make them available of course.

I've altered and made some original Cakewalk theme art in the past, but button strips are different. Is there any documentation available or is it just a matter of guesswork? I know that some of the multiple images in the set will represent the "on" state, the "pressed" state, the "off" state and so forth, but I have no idea going in which is which.

I know that Matthew does the Red/Green, which is great, but I want to do something a little less extreme.

Any help or encouragement here is welcome.

Edited June 26, 2020 by Starship Krupa

[Matthew White]

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

I know that some of the multiple images in the set will represent the "on" state, the "pressed" state, the "off" state and so forth, but I have no idea going in which is which.

Here's what I do to identify which button is off, on, hover when on, press on/off etc.

Export the original so you can import it back again,

Put colors on each of the button states,

Make a note of which colors you put where,

Open Cakewalk then add to the note which color appears for each state, some are obvious of course but for the others it's very helpful. Also worth noting is that buttons with the same amount of states and size is often the same for all like that.

Below is an example from a note I made for the MSR buttons used in the track and console view that have 8 different states and a screenshot in case clarity is needed for what I mean by putting colors on each state using the 'Freeze' button. Hope this helps.

1. Off/Unselcted
2. Press when Off
3. Hover when Off
4. On/Selected
5. Hover when On
6. Press when On
7. Unavailable/Disabled
8. Tri-State

[Matthew White]

To save you the trouble for the FX Rack and Sends On/Off buttons I just did it for you. 😄 (Order is left to right)

FX Rack Power Button
1. On
2. Press Off
3. Mouse Hover when On
4. Off
5. Press On
6. Hover when Off
7. Not used.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Sends Button
1. Hover over send name when Off
2. Press On 
3. Hover over send power button when Off
4. Hover over send name when On 
5. Press Off 
6. Hover over send power button when On

Edited June 26, 2020 by Matthew White

[User 905133]

2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

One of my perpetual annoyances regarding Cakewalk is my difficulty in visually distinguishing when FX (and sends) are engaged or bypassed either at a rack or individual level. Variations in grey scale aren't really enough for me. I would like a nice bright green for "engaged." Maybe a dark green for otherwise. Or blue.

Rather than just grumble, I have decided to attempt to address it via creating some new button sets for the FX (and sends). If they work, I'll make them available of course.

I've altered and made some original Cakewalk theme art in the past, but button strips are different. Is there any documentation available or is it just a matter of guesswork? I know that some of the multiple images in the set will represent the "on" state, the "pressed" state, the "off" state and so forth, but I have no idea going in which is which.

I know that Matthew does the Red/Green, which is great, but I want to do something a little less extreme.

Any help or encouragement here is welcome.

As someone who has good reason to dislike Cakewalk's shades of grey on other shades of grey motif (aging eyesight issues), I know what you mean. And somewhere I have some test Themes where I specifically played with the FX on/off button colors.  I would also appreciate a guide to the multiple states images.  I am pretty sure someone explained some of them in a post. 

Matthew's explanations here are excellent--very helpful! Thanks!! 

And thanks for raising this discussion!!!!!

 BTW: I am a big fan of using assorted colors to find where UI elements are, though so far almost all of my explorations have been with colors elements:

One of my favorite uses of bright green [good to go] v. pink [wait!]:   

 

 

Edited June 26, 2020 by User 905133

[Colin Nicholls]

I think Cakewalk "washes out" the FX bin with a transparent grey overlay when disabling the entire bin:

So it is basically a case of choosing colors that are clearest when affected by that transformation. Personally I rarely disable the FX bin individually per track (global FX bypass, on the other hand, is more useful for me)  but when developing a theme it is worth checking out the effect of the chosen colors.

This could be worth a "case study" in the YLG. I'm interested to see how this discussion goes.

[User 905133]

2 hours ago, Colin Nicholls said:

I think Cakewalk "washes out" the FX bin with a transparent grey overlay when disabling the entire bin:

So it is basically a case of choosing colors that are clearest when affected by that transformation. Personally I rarely disable the FX bin individually per track (global FX bypass, on the other hand, is more useful for me)  but when developing a theme it is worth checking out the effect of the chosen colors.

This could be worth a "case study" in the YLG. I'm interested to see how this discussion goes.

Not sure about bypassing the entire bin; now that you mention it, I am curious.  Here are some background colors I had on file for individual FX and the FX bin bypassed.  Thanks for pointing that out, Colin!

(1)  MNotepad -  active; z3ta+ - bypassed; bin: active

(2)   Same as above but bin is bypassed

ABOVE: Track View

(1)  (2)   

  ABOVE: Inspector Strip/Console View 

Edited June 26, 2020 by User 905133
(2) images labelled and moved (side-by-side); (1) to add images with the fx bins bypassed.

[Starship Krupa]

You all are so awesome. It's great to get so much information, and it's also comforting to know I'm not the only one

I hope that new users find out quickly about the availability of so many great themes. IMO, there should be more links to this content in BandLab Assistant. I've lobbied for inclusion of the Reference Guide as an "extras" link in BA, and I'd also like to see a link to user-created themes. After all, isn't that BandLab's thing? People sharing what they've made, I think it's a natural fit.

This gives me much to digest, and in the meantime, I've "borrowed" Matthew's button strips.