Sonar Offer

[Helios.G]

Hey guys, I don't know if this is the best spot for this, but here it goes.   I've been using Sonar/Cakewalk going on almost 20 years or so.  I love cakewalk and have held on through all the different ownership, cause I know it well.  I have been hesitant to jump into new sonar, one, because I'm not a fan of subs, but two, and more importantly for me, the lack of ability to edit the color palette on the GUI.   I have visual issues, and I need contrast to be able to edit and spice comfortably for hours when making music.  For a while now sonars color palette had been and issue for me, since the gibson days, but there was always  a way to change it.  In the new sonar, that is not the case.  With the new offer for cakewalk users I decided to download it again, and again, I couldn't look at it for longer than a few minutes at a time without getting a migraine.  Is there no workaround for this?  I can't see myself paying for something that doesn't take this type of stuff into account for it's users.  I've included a few pics to show what I mean.  The first  is cakewalk, the second is new sonar.  Same exact project.  Cakewalk is much easier to edit the color palette and make it easy on my eyes.  Other daws have this as well, I'll add pics of that too.  

[Colin Nicholls]

My eyes! The goggles do nothing!

 

Seriously, UI is so subjective isn't it. Personally I think there will be some user customization of color coming to new Sonar at some point, but I don't blame them at all for focusing on other things whilst rebuilding the UI engine from the foundations up. 

Edited yesterday at 05:12 PM by Colin Nicholls

[pwalpwal]

14 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

UI is so subjective isn't it

not these days, it's a career path in software dev

[kitekrazy1]

1 hour ago, Colin Nicholls said:

My eyes! The googles do nothing!

 

Seriously, UI is so subjective isn't it. Personally I think there will be some user customization of color coming to new Sonar at some point, but I don't blame them at all for focusing on other things whilst rebuilding the UI engine from the foundations up. 

I love LIve for it's 8 bit look.  All of my Magix software that use to be Sony looks like the original.  

Maybe its my age but I don't like dark themes

[Helios.G]

1 hour ago, Colin Nicholls said:

My eyes! The googles do nothing!

 

Seriously, UI is so subjective isn't it. Personally I think there will be some user customization of color coming to new Sonar at some point, but I don't blame them at all for focusing on other things whilst rebuilding the UI engine from the foundations up. 

I get what you're saying, but to me it's not about just preference, I get migraines looking at these dark UI's and brightly centered blobs.   Every software I have installed that is like this, the moment I check and see there is no way to customize, it gets deleted.  

[Bristol_Jonesey]

Is this any better?

 

[User 905133]

2 hours ago, Bristol_Jonesey said:

Is this any better?

Based on my personal experience, it is not better, for a number of reasons.  Just 2: (1) it's predominantly still various shades of grey, white, and/or black on to of other shades of grey, white, and/or black. (2) the color combinations that work best for my eyes (in the track name field for example) might not be the same color combinations that work best for someone else's eyes.  

[User 905133]

5 hours ago, Colin Nicholls said:

. . . I think there will be some user customization of color coming to new Sonar at some point . . . 

Yes. I remember reading this at least once over the past year or so.  I never doubted that it would be forthcoming and continue to look forward to it.  Sorry, I found the post a few days ago, but I didn't bookmark it.

5 hours ago, Colin Nicholls said:

. . . I don't blame them at all for focusing on other things whilst rebuilding the UI engine from the foundations up. 

I agree 100%.

[Helios.G]

3 hours ago, Bristol_Jonesey said:

Is this any better?

 

Hey Jonesey, unfortunately no.  The issue is how my vision works.  I don't know what exactly is the cause, but viewing these basically monochromatic UI's hurts my eyes and usually end up in migraine.  It's a real problem for me.  

[SteveC]

I messed around a bit with track and clip colors, but this was about the best I could do using the Mercury Classic and Light Grey themes. 

[Helios.G]

27 minutes ago, SteveC said:

I messed around a bit with track and clip colors, but this was about the best I could do using the Mercury Classic and Light Grey themes. 

How'd you do that?!! Like what was the process? This would be so much easier on my eyes, especially the first one.

[SteveC]

Cool!  I was thinking that you might focus more on the track and clip colors than the surrounding UI elements. 

First, I set the color theme to Mercury Classic and track color Saturation to the max value.

Next, for the track colors I chose Other then selected a bolder color than the defaults.

Last, I did the same for the Clip Foreground and Background colors.

 

HTH

[Helios.G]

27 minutes ago, SteveC said:

Cool!  I was thinking that you might focus more on the track and clip colors than the surrounding UI elements. 

First, I set the color theme to Mercury Classic and track color Saturation to the max value.

Next, for the track colors I chose Other then selected a bolder color than the defaults.

Last, I did the same for the Clip Foreground and Background colors.

 

HTH

This looks great steve, thanks a million!  I'm gonna give it a try and report back later, awesome!  THank you

[Giorgio Gabriel]

Cool,

 

thanks,

Giorgio

 

[AB9]

Can you set the background colors for all clips across a track without having to do so one at a time?  

[SteveC]

3 hours ago, Helios.G said:

This looks great steve, thanks a million!  I'm gonna give it a try and report back later, awesome!  THank you

You're welcome!   Hopefully it works the way you need. 

 

2 hours ago, AB9 said:

Can you set the background colors for all clips across a track without having to do so one at a time?  

Sure can - just hold the Ctrl key down. Well, except for when you click on Foreground or Background in the TI - otherwise hold Ctrl again when selecting the color and clicking OK, then all clips should update at the same time.  Works the same for clips in different tracks too. 

Edit: Actually you don't need to hold the Ctrl key after all - just select the clips and change all their Foreground and/or Background colors together. 

 

Edited 4 hours ago by SteveC

[Helios.G]

4 hours ago, SteveC said:

You're welcome!   Hopefully it works the way you need. 

 

Sure can - just hold the Ctrl key down. Well, except for when you click on Foreground or Background in the TI - otherwise hold Ctrl again when selecting the color and clicking OK, then all clips should update at the same time.  Works the same for clips in different tracks too. 

Edit: Actually you don't need to hold the Ctrl key after all - just select the clips and change all their Foreground and/or Background colors together. 

 

Hey SteveC, Tried it out, and it worked sort of, but because of the default behavior of the built in themes, every new track has to go through the process individually.  Sometimes I work on projects with high track counts, so that's a big no no for me.  I'm going to keep using Cbb, but for the first time in all these years, if they cut me off, I might have to find a new daw.  That's a real bummer for me