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Customizing
Appearance
In the Preferences dialog, you find a page called Appear-
ance. The following settings are available:
General
The controls on the General page affect the appearance of
the windows that surround the controls and workspaces in
Cubase.
• Color Intensity determines how rich the background
colors are, from gray to blue.
• Color Lightness lightens or darkens the background.
• The Color Tone slider changes the background color.
• Button Brightness can be used to separately lighten or
darken the buttons.
Meters
The coloring of meters in Cubase can be controlled in so-
phisticated ways. Multiple colors can help to visually indi-
cate what levels are being reached, e. g. in a channel of
the VST Mixer. To do this, the meter on the Appearances–
Meters page has color handles that allow you to define
what color the meter will have at a given signal level.
The Appearances–Meters page in the Preferences dialog
• You can click on any color handle and move its position
on the meter scale. If you hold down [Shift] while moving
the handle with the mouse, it will move ten times slower
for more precise positioning. You may also nudge the
color handle’s position with the Arrow Up/Down keys.
Holding [Shift] while nudging will move the color handle
ten times faster.
• You can add color handles by [Alt]/[Option]-clicking
anywhere along the side of the meter scale. To remove a
color handle, [Ctrl]/[Command]-click the handle.
By adding more color handles to the meter scale, you can define colors
for more specific signal levels. Try adding two color handles very close to
one another. You can make the meter color change more rapidly at a
specific signal level this way.
• To change the color of a handle, select the handle by ei-
ther clicking on it or by jumping to it with the [Tab] key
(hold down [Shift] and press the [Tab] key to jump back-
wards). Then use the hue and brightness controls on the
right side to alter the handle’s color.
The currently selected color handle is indicated by a black triangle on its
left side.
Work Area
The work areas in Cubase are those places where the ac-
tual data are displayed such as the Project window event
display. In these areas, there are items such as vertical
and horizontal grid lines that can be altered in intensity by
the controls found on this page.
Applying colors in the Project
window
You can use color scheming for an easier overview of
tracks and events in the Project window. Colors can be
applied individually to tracks and events/parts. If you color
a track, the corresponding events and parts are displayed
in the same color. However, you can also color events and
parts differently, “overriding” the applied track color.
In the following sections you will learn how to set up pref-
erences to color tracks automatically, how to color parts
or events manually, how to determine whether you want to
color the events themselves or their background, and how
to customize the color palette for selecting colors.