3D Glass Effect Bars - 1080P To 4K - D/L

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Thread update:

Includes a 3D Glass Effect for all Studio One versions - Top & Bottom


Click to see large view at 100% opacity

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Download Link Below:

Studio One 3D GUI Glass FX - Download Link -

Download Free-Program Here:

http://customdesktoplogo.wikidot.com/download

Studio One's GUI is generally pretty flat, but that doesn't mean it needs to always look that way. Using the free, easy-to-use utility from the link below, you can set up and trigger the 3D look in seconds. The program uses the Z-buffer system of your Windows operating system, so mouse clicks pass through as normal.

The set comes with 4 GUI sizes:

1920x1080
2560x1440
3200x1800
3840x2160

The Desktop Logo 2 utility program provides 255 levels of opacity and once set, will be retained as will all other settings upon restarting it at any time later. The set of overlays is essentially transparent white gradients and drop shadows, adjusted via the opacity level slider the utility provides. So whether you are switching between the Song, Start or Project page, the effect will remain the same and gives a really nice effect to how Studio One looks without getting in the way. Simply unzip the file and drag the folders to the system folder of the programs and choose from the folder that highlights the resolution.


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For those new here, or indeed to Studio One, I've a video to show you an example of what you can do to change Studio One to suit yourself, design or simply hide what you don't want to see. All you need is an image editor and a free utility program.

Last edited by THE INTRANCER on Fri Mar 24, 2023 7:52 pm, edited 10 times in total.
KVR S1-Thread | The Intrancersonic-Design Source > Program Resource | Studio One Resource | Music Gallery | 2D / 3D Sci-fi Art | GUI Projects | Animations | Photography | Film Docs | 80's Cartoons | Games | Music Hardware |

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Oh. Early 2000s bubble themes

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I like it. At least, you can distinguish the different elements. Haven't used Studio One in years, because of Presonus overall arrogance, and their failure to add a decent theming option. It's a shame, because I actually liked using it.

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Orbit-50 wrote: Fri Jul 02, 2021 2:16 am Haven't used Studio One in years, because of Presonus overall arrogance, and their failure to add a decent theming option. It's a shame, because I actually liked using it.
At least you have your priorities straight.
THIS MUSIC HAS BEEN MIXED TO BE PLAYED LOUD SO TURN IT UP

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Orbit-50 wrote: Fri Jul 02, 2021 2:16 am I like it. At least, you can distinguish the different elements. Haven't used Studio One in years, because of Presonus overall arrogance, and their failure to add a decent theming option. It's a shame, because I actually liked using it.
To be fair to Presonus, you can actually theme it which is far more than what you can do with other DAW's like Bitwig for example. You can of course use external utility programs to change colours of Bitwig such as this here.
KVR S1-Thread | The Intrancersonic-Design Source > Program Resource | Studio One Resource | Music Gallery | 2D / 3D Sci-fi Art | GUI Projects | Animations | Photography | Film Docs | 80's Cartoons | Games | Music Hardware |

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For me, it's hard to find what I want quickly with S1. Too many tiny icons, too many menu entries, and I find the various visual elements poorly delineated. Put another way, I find it very slow because I continually waste time hunting for stuff that's in plain sight. Breaks up my creative flow big time so I eventually moved to something simpler and quicker. Great features, but I just don't mesh with the interface.

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jonljacobi wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 12:29 am For me, it's hard to find what I want quickly with S1. Too many tiny icons, too many menu entries, and I find the various visual elements poorly delineated. Put another way, I find it very slow because I continually waste time hunting for stuff that's in plain sight. Breaks up my creative flow big time so I eventually moved to something simpler and quicker. Great features, but I just don't mesh with the interface.
It wouldn't be as bad for me if they just gave you the ability to fine tune the GUI elements to make them lighter with dark outlining and text, instead of what they turned it into after version 2. I jumped ship for the reasons you just stated. I couldn't have worded it better. Thanks.

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THE INTRANCER wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 11:00 pm
Orbit-50 wrote: Fri Jul 02, 2021 2:16 am I like it. At least, you can distinguish the different elements. Haven't used Studio One in years, because of Presonus overall arrogance, and their failure to add a decent theming option. It's a shame, because I actually liked using it.
To be fair to Presonus, you can actually theme it which is far more than what you can do with other DAW's like Bitwig for example. You can of course use external utility programs to change colours of Bitwig such as this here.
I tried to use their "theming" whatever it is they threw in there, still terrible. If I recall, you could'nt control the amount of black or something like that. Looked like a fake overlay if you messed with it.
Point noted though on the fact that other developers don't give that either. They all should.

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Why? It's irrelevant. Studio one's GUI is very legible and, more importantly, facilitates great workflow. The longer I use it, the more impressed I am with the way it works and I am very happy with the way it looks, too.
Orbit-50 wrote: Fri Jul 02, 2021 2:16 amI like it. At least, you can distinguish the different elements. Haven't used Studio One in years, because of Presonus overall arrogance, and their failure to add a decent theming option. It's a shame, because I actually liked using it.
I think one of the best things about Studio One is the way it looks. It's classy and a bit understated, which means it stays out of your way while you work. Before I started using it, every time I saw it in a video I'd want to know what it was.
jonljacobi wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 12:29 amFor me, it's hard to find what I want quickly with S1. Too many tiny icons, too many menu entries, and I find the various visual elements poorly delineated. Put another way, I find it very slow because I continually waste time hunting for stuff that's in plain sight. Breaks up my creative flow big time so I eventually moved to something simpler and quicker. Great features, but I just don't mesh with the interface.
Again, I'm the opposite. From the very first time I fired it up, I've found it really easy to find the things I use all the time. There are one or two exceptions, e.g. it took me 6 months to get used to where the tempo is displayed/edited but that's more about what I had been used to previously than it actually being in a bad spot. Pretty much everything else, though, is either obvious or where I tend to intuitively look for it. In the 8 or 9 months I've been using S1, I think I have only had to look up two or three things in the manual. Everything else I have been able to work out for myself.
NOVAkILL : Legion GO, AMD Z1x, 16GB RAM, Win11 | Audient EVO 8 | Lumi Keys | Studio Pro 8
Korg Odyssey, bx-oberhausen, Proxima, PolyMax, GR8, JP6K, Union, Atomika,
Invader 2, Flow Motion, Olga, TRK 01, Thorn, Spire, VG Iron

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I totally respect your views Bones, (always) but in this case, perception is reality. All I saw when using Studio One, was just one big linear sea of darkness with tons of elements that all look the same with very little seperation. As jonljacobi stated, it became an impediment to working as quickly as I would in Live, Cubase, Reason, the list goes on...Hell, even Renoise for Crist's sake, is easier for me to navigate than Studio One v3 and higher. If everyone is happy using it the way it is, that's cool. I just can't do it.

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Studio One's fonts are rather poor...they are functional but they are not pretty. You can see the difference in the above video as it transitions from the beginning, but it's great that I can actually address this using a digital overlay for a few areas of the GUI. You can argue that whilst in the midst of producing a piece of music that the actual GUI becomes more of a blur as you focus on one particular spot and listen to the music you are producing, but it nevertheless is noticeable from the outset that the quality of the GUI isn't that high. On the positive side, it supports Hi-DPI scaling.
KVR S1-Thread | The Intrancersonic-Design Source > Program Resource | Studio One Resource | Music Gallery | 2D / 3D Sci-fi Art | GUI Projects | Animations | Photography | Film Docs | 80's Cartoons | Games | Music Hardware |

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Why do fonts need to be pretty? I want functional. I want fonts that I don't even notice and that is certainly the case with Studio One, in that I couldn't even tell you if they were sans-serif or serif fonts (although I assume the former). They are the right size, weight (thickness of the strokes/lines) and proportion (not too wide, not too narrow) and that's really all that matters, isn't it?
Orbit-50 wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 2:11 am All I saw when using Studio One, was just one big linear sea of darkness with tons of elements that all look the same with very little seperation. As jonljacobi stated, it became an impediment to working as quickly as I would in Live, Cubase, Reason, the list goes on...Hell, even Renoise for Crist's sake, is easier for me to navigate than Studio One v3 and higher.
Maybe it was like that once but it is certainly not like that now. The GUI is very customisable. I want things to be subtle so, as I said, it stays out of the way while I work so I go for a more muted palette but you can make it as bright as you like, which should improve the contrast (if that's what annoys you).

I absolutely can't agree that Cubase is any better. Cubase's GUI feels positively crude by comparison, like something from the 1990s that's had little updates here and there until it ends up looking like shareware, like Audacity or something. Studio One's GUI feels like Cubase done right to me. It also looks eerily similar to Logic. After just one month working in Studio One, I knew it better than I know Cubase and could work much faster than I could in Cubase, which I'd been using for a year or so. Of course, knowing Cubase made S1 easier to pick up, so it's probably not being fair but it surprises the krap out of me that anyone would prefer the Cubase GUI. Workflows are pretty much the same.

Reason looks like it was designed by the people from Fisher-Price. It's way too over-the-top for me, although it's ages since I took a close look at it. Live is really bad, too, in the opposite way. It is basically a huge, grey expanse where it's hard to even see the controls, much less work with them. When Live was first released, I thought it looked amazing but one night working with the demo was enough to convince me that it was not. 20 years later it still seems to be mostly the same as it was back then.
NOVAkILL : Legion GO, AMD Z1x, 16GB RAM, Win11 | Audient EVO 8 | Lumi Keys | Studio Pro 8
Korg Odyssey, bx-oberhausen, Proxima, PolyMax, GR8, JP6K, Union, Atomika,
Invader 2, Flow Motion, Olga, TRK 01, Thorn, Spire, VG Iron

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BONES wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 3:07 am Why do fonts need to be pretty? I want functional. I want fonts that I don't even notice and that is certainly the case with Studio One, in that I couldn't even tell you if they were sans-serif or serif fonts (although I assume the former). They are the right size, weight (thickness of the strokes/lines) and proportion (not too wide, not too narrow) and that's really all that matters, isn't it?
The fonts are an eyesore which can be expressed as an eye strain which hinders functionality and user experience. The problem is that the fonts are thin, I'm not expecting huge bold text, just clearly defined fonts. A choice of choosing your own fonts for the GUI would go along way to improve how Studio One is presented. If I could use that Reshader Utility and use the antialiasing features to hack Studio One's fonts I would lol.

Actually I'm gonna give that a try by accessing DirectX and adding the additional FX libraries... It might be possible to alter Studio One's GUI using this method.. dunno.
KVR S1-Thread | The Intrancersonic-Design Source > Program Resource | Studio One Resource | Music Gallery | 2D / 3D Sci-fi Art | GUI Projects | Animations | Photography | Film Docs | 80's Cartoons | Games | Music Hardware |

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No, that's not how it works. Quite the opposite, fancy designer fonts are far more likely to induce eye strain. The fonts in S1 are no thinner than on thousands of other applications so either thousands of professional designers are wrong or you are. Guess who my money's on?
NOVAkILL : Legion GO, AMD Z1x, 16GB RAM, Win11 | Audient EVO 8 | Lumi Keys | Studio Pro 8
Korg Odyssey, bx-oberhausen, Proxima, PolyMax, GR8, JP6K, Union, Atomika,
Invader 2, Flow Motion, Olga, TRK 01, Thorn, Spire, VG Iron

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BONES wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 3:07 am I absolutely can't agree that Cubase is any better. Cubase's GUI feels positively crude by comparison, like something from the 1990s that's had little updates here and there until it ends up looking like shareware, like Audacity or something.
lol I wouldn't go as far as to include the word shareware. The Cubase GUI is not without fault for sure, but they've done some refinements to it over the years that have brought it out of the earlier SX days. I will tell you this though, there are probably lot's of people that wish that that Steinberg would bring it back to the "old days" for various reasons or another. My reason would be the fact that Steinberg removed key functions that allowed more "tailoring" of the GUI. With all of that said, at least I can see everything in Cubase 11 clearly enough, to move quickly even though the the color schemes that they give you with Cubase could be better, but I've given up on waiting for the pretty girl to walk through the door at this point.
BONES wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 3:07 amStudio One's GUI feels like Cubase done right to me. It also looks eerily similar to Logic. After just one month working in Studio One, I knew it better than I know Cubase and could work much faster than I could in Cubase, which I'd been using for a year or so. Of course, knowing Cubase made S1 easier to pick up, so it's probably not being fair but it surprises the krap out of me that anyone would prefer the Cubase GUI. Workflows are pretty much the same.
Well, that's why I'm kind of bitter that it's so difficult for me to use Studio One. Studio One is Cubase's younger brother that doesn't know as much as his older sibling does, but has enough street smarts and wit, to run circles around him. The only thing though, is that he can't play chess, like his older brother can.
BONES wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 3:07 amReason looks like it was designed by the people from Fisher-Price. It's way too over-the-top for me, although it's ages since I took a close look at it.
:lol: You have a point, but here's where perception is reality again. You're not the only one that has that opinion about Reason so I get it totally, but I think it looks freakin' awesome. It's the contrast and vibrancy that I love. A bit less stale if you will.
BONES wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 3:07 amLive is really bad, too, in the opposite way. It is basically a huge, grey expanse where it's hard to even see the controls, much less work with them. When Live was first released, I thought it looked amazing but one night working with the demo was enough to convince me that it was not. 20 years later it still seems to be mostly the same as it was back then.
The word were looking for here is institutional. I agree with you on that, but I still fire it up more times than not, because of it's minimalistic GUI design, I can distinguish every element (be they few) very quickly without playing "whack a mole". I don't like that game, I hate it even more when I have to play it in a DAW
I guess this thread has help me focus on what it is that I'm after when it comes to DAW GUI design (lighter elements with darker boarders and darker text for overall high contrast) and I thank you guys for raising my awareness here because I never gave it any collective thought about exactly why I hate using certain DAWs. I mean...kinda I knew... but...

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