Customising Studio One 4’s GUI
It’s not often you get a DAW update that doesn’t tweak the fundamental appearance of the software at least a little. Studio One 4 brings a few fresh new graphical touch to the table.
First, the mixer has been smartened up. As well as new fader graphics, the Mute, Solo, Arm and Monitor buttons have been relocated to the top of each channel, and the Arm and Monitor buttons are flexible, disappearing on FX channels and turning to Stereo/Mono switches on buses.
Where these buttons once were, down the right of each channel, there are still shortcuts to the Channel Editor and Instrument, plus channel expansion buttons. There’s also a three-line ‘hamburger’ style icon, the three horizontal segments of which light up blue if that track has Inserts, Sends or Mix FX active (respectively from top to bottom).
That’s all well and good, but perhaps more significant is one small tweak made to the Appearance tab in the Settings. Here, the Luminance slider can now be pushed to 100%, making Studio One white. These days, most developers are taking steps to darken their software, and it’s nice to be at least given the option to go bright in Studio One 4. And just in time for summer, too.
That tweak to the luminance slider also means that you can play with the Hue Shift and Saturation and turn Studio One 4 different colours. Tickle it your very own special shade of pink, get a moody blue hue, or make other producers green with envy.
You can select the main background to be a different colour to the arrangement one, giving you even more options to express yourself.