Dark theme in Pro Tools 2020.11

[musicman691]

I just checked and there's no way that I can find to get PT 2020.11 in black and white (actually grey scale). Unless you don't use any track colors. Or you muck with your monitor settings. But I have to ask - why make life more difficult than needs be? Unless you have a color sensitivity issue. BTW the red hack I mentioned earlier does seem to work on various track colors and it works for both audio and MIDI.

[freeBase]

Originally Posted by musicman691

You really should work in color as that would make things a lot easier as regards visibility. When you do so making the first change is easy. You need to modify the line cMutedRegionBackgroundColor from (14135,14135,14153,65535) to whatever color you want using 16 bit color numbers. I could make the change but have no way to tell what things would look like in black & white. As a test I modified my file to (65535,0,0,65535) which in color gives a solid red. I only used that color as a proof of concept that the number change worked like I thought it would.


As to the second issue I haven't yet found a way to do what you want. That's not to say it can't be done but I need more time to work it out.



For the way you work if you won't work in color why use dark mode?

Thanks for the reply and the info. Having worked pretty much every day in ProTools for over 20 years and editing way too many songs than I'd prefer to remember, there is a method to my madness in regards to black and white regions (er, clips and I do believe there are a bunch of other advantages to working in Dark mode aside from the actual region color... but yes, I may have to switch back and forth between modes depending on what I'm doing (heavy editing - normal mode, producing/mixing - dark mode).

If by any chance you come across a way to tweak these 2 scenarios in regards to clips without color, please do let me know :)

Thank you.

[freeBase]

Originally Posted by musicman691

I just checked and there's no way that I can find to get PT 2020.11 in black and white (actually grey scale). Unless you don't use any track colors. Or you muck with your monitor settings. But I have to ask - why make life more difficult than needs be? Unless you have a color sensitivity issue. BTW the red hack I mentioned earlier does seem to work on various track colors and it works for both audio and MIDI.

I'll definitely give it a try. The black/white thing for me is so ingrained in my ability to edit quickly and indicate some other track status items... it's something I've been using for years and haven't been able to break...

[freeBase]

Originally Posted by musicman691

I just checked and there's no way that I can find to get PT 2020.11 in black and white (actually grey scale). Unless you don't use any track colors. Or you muck with your monitor settings. But I have to ask - why make life more difficult than needs be? Unless you have a color sensitivity issue. BTW the red hack I mentioned earlier does seem to work on various track colors and it works for both audio and MIDI.

Just to clarify, I don't have the entire screen set to greyscale, it's only the preference to set the clip color to groups. So when groups are disabled, the clips are black and white instead of colored. The rest of the UI is the same.

Sorry for the confusion.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by freeBase

Thanks for the reply and the info. Having worked pretty much every day in ProTools for over 20 years and editing way too many songs than I'd prefer to remember, there is a method to my madness in regards to black and white regions (er, clips and I do believe there are a bunch of other advantages to working in Dark mode aside from the actual region color... but yes, I may have to switch back and forth between modes depending on what I'm doing (heavy editing - normal mode, producing/mixing - dark mode).

If by any chance you come across a way to tweak these 2 scenarios in regards to clips without color, please do let me know :)

Thank you.

Originally Posted by freeBase

I'll definitely give it a try. The black/white thing for me is so ingrained in my ability to edit quickly and indicate some other track status items... it's something I've been using for years and haven't been able to break...

There's part of the problem - you're used to working in what's now called 'classic' mode. I suggest going back to that if you won't work in normal color mode.

Originally Posted by freeBase

Just to clarify, I don't have the entire screen set to greyscale, it's only the preference to set the clip color to groups. So when groups are disabled, the clips are black and white instead of colored. The rest of the UI is the same.

Sorry for the confusion.

You should have mentioned this in your first post.

You're the first person I've ever seen that works in greyscale in PT. There's no way to do what you want without affecting the way things look when working in a normal fashion. Like I wrote the muted section thing is easy but I have no idea how that would look in how you work. The other thing is impossible as near as I can figure it out.

I don't know of any pro that works like you do.

Also you don't say whether you're working on a Mac or Winbox but the tweaks mentioned here are for Macs.

[freeBase]

Originally Posted by musicman691

There's part of the problem - you're used to working in what's now called 'classic' mode. I suggest going back to that if you won't work in normal color mode.

You should have mentioned this in your first post.

You're the first person I've ever seen that works in greyscale in PT. There's no way to do what you want without affecting the way things look when working in a normal fashion. Like I wrote the muted section thing is easy but I have no idea how that would look in how you work. The other thing is impossible as near as I can figure it out.

I don't know of any pro that works like you do.

Also you don't say whether you're working on a Mac or Winbox but the tweaks mentioned here are for Macs.

Again, my apologies for the confusion. And not to beat a dead horse, but to clarify so anyone else looking into this doesn't go down the wrong rabbit hole:
- I'm on a Mac. ProTools HDX (ultimate).
- My screen and the entire ProTools UI (and all other apps on the Mac) are in full color.
- My ProTools "Color Coding" preference is set to have Clip Color follow groups, so when Groups are disabled or suspended, the clips are black/white/grey. When the groups are on, all the clips that belong to tracks in those groups are the same color as the group. ***screenshots attached***

As for why I do this and where I learned it, yes it's archaic... it was passed on to me by a few "pros" that are DAW pioneers and deeply involved in the development of early ProTools versions (sound tools) and invented a lot of the workflows that are now automated features within DAWs. I also only know of a handful of people who work in ProTools this way, but they happen to be some of the best editors on the planet when it comes to music production (based on the A+++ producer's and artists they've been editors for). Definitely not everyone's "cup of tea", but there's a functional benefit to it.

[freeBase]

Sorry, the screenshots didn't get attached in my previous posts.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by freeBase

Again, my apologies for the confusion. And not to beat a dead horse, but to clarify so anyone else looking into this doesn't go down the wrong rabbit hole:
- I'm on a Mac. ProTools HDX (ultimate).
- My screen and the entire ProTools UI (and all other apps on the Mac) are in full color.
- My ProTools "Color Coding" preference is set to have Clip Color follow groups, so when Groups are disabled or suspended, the clips are black/white/grey. When the groups are on, all the clips that belong to tracks in those groups are the same color as the group. ***screenshots attached***

As for why I do this and where I learned it, yes it's archaic... it was passed on to me by a few "pros" that are DAW pioneers and deeply involved in the development of early ProTools versions (sound tools) and invented a lot of the workflows that are now automated features within DAWs. I also only know of a handful of people who work in ProTools this way, but they happen to be some of the best editors on the planet when it comes to music production (based on the A+++ producer's and artists they've been editors for). Definitely not everyone's "cup of tea", but there's a functional benefit to it.

As I said before there's no way to do what you want with dark mode without it screwing up the regular way of working color-wise. Yes the background for muted segments can be changed but you'll also see that change when you re-enable groups. Do you really want that? There's no real direct translation for color to grayscale. As for that other change I don't see a way to do that.


Sorry but if you really want to work in dark mode you're going to have to learn to live with certain things. Or, like I wrote earlier - ditch dark mode and work in classic. Looks like you're going to have to adapt your workflow if you're really in love with dark mode.

[freeBase]

Originally Posted by musicman691

As I said before there's no way to do what you want with dark mode without it screwing up the regular way of working color-wise. Yes the background for muted segments can be changed but you'll also see that change when you re-enable groups. Do you really want that? There's no real direct translation for color to grayscale. As for that other change I don't see a way to do that.


Sorry but if you really want to work in dark mode you're going to have to learn to live with certain things. Or, like I wrote earlier - ditch dark mode and work in classic. Looks like you're going to have to adapt your workflow if you're really in love with dark mode.

Gotcha. Thank you very much for the info, much appreciate :)

[Eric Lambert]

I'm so close. Only gripe is the fact that selected MIDI notes are still (somewhat) tough to identify vs unselected notes, and the biggest issue is that it's virtually impossible to know which MIDI notes are selected when looking at the velocity window. I know this has come up before, but as someone who deals with a lot of MIDI it's quite a hurdle.