What's your favorite theme?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I'm not reading this whole thread (sorry) but as posted before elsewhere, eye candy is not so important to me. I prefer consistency when I shift from app to app so the basic MOTU dark grey setting is just fine. Track colors become more important to me, especially when editing multiple tracks in one MIDI edit window and sometimes when editing audio. But other than that, even if the interface was black and white (for the most part) I'd be just fine with that.

[musicman691]

I'm pretty sick of skeuomorphic design concepts, I'm not a total fan of Nine, but I do like the way the Control Panel buttons aren't tape deck style, all right next to each other. I'm done with 3D for the sake of 3D, IMO 3D should be for things that need it, where it tells the brain something. I don't mean to step into 'Comparative DAW 1010' here, but Ableton Live is a great example of a non traditional DAW design that really does work in practice A border doesn't need details, we all know it's a border etc.
My favorite Themes all have minimal shading, I just don't need the distraction, the GUI of DP or any DAW in my mind is there to host the audio and MIDI tracks, it's more important that it be useful over looking like something familiar. Take DMG Audio Plug Ins or Fabfilter for instance VS Slate or Ohm Force, even PSP. Arturia are super guilty of sacrificing usability by sticking to interfaces that look like the original hardware, but make it harder to use the software. That observation has nothing to do with the sound of the plug ins,love all those companies.

I think Nine would be a great theme if they didn't muddy the contrast so much, I mostly stick with None More Black and Carbon Fiber Red, but the transport 'buttons' in Nine are great for touch screens for instance.

If I'm sitting in front of something for hours on end I don't need carnival colors - hurts my eyes. Also don't need multitudes of colors as it's distracting. One of my beefs with some of the included themes in DP9 is for me they don't work well on glossy screens - thanks Apple for no more matte screens.

And Arturia are a perfect example of gui's that could be way better, especially with the way they crowd things together just because they want to emulate the original synth. To me the worst one is the CS80 - try editing patches on that one.

[Killahurts]

I'm not reading this whole thread (sorry)

Well if you had, you'd realize that you were also supposed to tell your favorite 70's TV theme, apparently.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Ha ha ha. OMG I can't decide. I gues The Lone Ranger. No, "Fragments" on TCM because I get paid every time they run it. Lol. And it's all in black and white. LOL

[Martini Hill]

Usually use Nine or Producer but trying to break out into others. Mancini's Newhart is one of my favorite TV themes. Even if we sit down to watch a few recorded shows in a row, I have to listen to the opening and closing theme every time! I know Portlandia is not a 70's show but I love it's theme as a throwback to an 80's vibe as well as the show itself.

Sent from my XT1030 using Tapatalk

[bayswater]

I'm pretty sick of skeuomorphic design concepts, I'm not a total fan of Nine, but I do like the way the Control Panel buttons aren't tape deck style, all right next to each other. I'm done with 3D for the sake of 3D, IMO 3D should be for things that need it,

Skeuomorphic designs can go, but 3D can be very useful, e.g. to distinguish action buttons from information fields. But it can be useless too, like the Sound Bite Colour Bar in the SE. It used to be 3D (in preferences it still is)

I think Nine would be a great theme if they didn't muddy the contrast so much

Exactly. I don't know what you meant by "shading", but I the changes I make to the stock themes are to improve contrast against background for specific items. I find most of the stock themes lacking on this.

[Killahurts]

No, "Fragments" on TCM because I get paid every time they run it.

Sweet!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

No, "Fragments" on TCM because I get paid every time they run it.

Sweet!

Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

[Shooshie]

My complaints with the MOTU themes are:
1) lack of color (or garish in a few cases)
2) too many versions of "black & white = gray"
3) too many variations of white on white.


As for those other themes, TV themes, that is, I like to go back to the day of those "commercial jazz" guys like Nelson Riddle, Lennie Niehaus, Hoyt Curtain, Hugo Montenegro, Jerry Goldsmith, Henry Mancini and others who wrote those exquisitely arranged and performed themes like Meet the Flintstones, or Bewitched, or I Dream of Jeannie, or even Gomer Pyle, which is just perfect for what it's supposed to represent. They just got so much color out of a small orchestra, and they always gave the lead trumpet the carte blanche to stylize the whole theme so that it almost didn't seem like instruments playing but people singing. (ok, technically Meet the Flintstones WAS people singing)

Then there were guys like Carl Stalling, Frank Churchill, and Oliver Wallace who created music that simply MADE the animation features that went with them. Stalling was a freaking genius. The guys who played for him must have been at the top of the game in Los Angeles.

But if you're going to limit it to 1970s themes, I can't go there. I wasn't watching TV in the 70s, 80s, or 90s. I threw out the TV in about 1971 and have only gone back to it via iTunes or Netflix. I do remember Hawaii Five-0 and Ironsides, but marching band probably ruined those for me.

Of course, I can't leave out composers like Randy Newman or Michael Giacchino, who have created works of genius for Pixar and various TV shows. Giacchino is "multi-lingual" when it comes to musical styles. He can just do anything, and he does it better than the originals. Of course, it doesn't hurt that he uses DP. If you're out there reading this, big guy, you've got fans here! Newman is, of course, Newman, but his sophistication in jazz stylings has always surprised me. I guess my first exposure to him was "Short People," after which I thought the bar was set pretty low for making hit records. But he's earned my respect as a composer and musician.

What were we talking about?

Shooshie

[Tesionman]

I keep coming back to "Eight"! I think its the most balanced theme in DP. Not too dark and not to bright! Its just perfect!

[Killahurts]

This is interesting- I've been using Presonus Studio One to work on a project where all the other members of the band have and use it. It doesn't have anything like themes, but it does have these "Background" controls in the prefs. It looks a lot like the color correction tools on Final Cut Pro X. I moved the contrast and saturation, and the bizarre "Hue Shift", which is kind of like the tint control on an old Television.. it was all just varying degrees of bad, I never could make it look better than the stock black/grey/blackblack/grey thing it defaults to.

It made me realize that I was complaining too much about the excellent themes feature we enjoy in DP. It gives perspective, when you look at many other DAWs and realize there is no way to really change their crappy looks.. they get what they get.

[sonus]

Carbon Fiber Red is the one I use mostly. I think it's easy on the eyes and has generally good contrast. i have customized it a bit though by changing the FX window's bezel colour to something more distinguishable from the background.

As for the 70's tv theme poll and even though i like lots of tv theme songs from that era (Hawai 5-0, Mission impossible, Kojak...), it's that glorious John Barry's music from "The Persuaders" that takes my vote!