Especially as a beginner, I found your screens extremely "busy." & sometimes hard to navigate. I'd like to suggest that while you keep your current look the way it is, also provide a "simplified" interface that a user (either beginners or others who find the screen too busy) with the more often used features & options, and then be able to switch between the two if you don't see what you need. I started with SO4, and now have SO5 Pro, but my learning curve was long and frustrating & it continues to overwhelme me sometimes and wish I had gone with something simplier like your competitors present.
There are just SOOO many options, things to click on, menus to navigate. Don't get me wrong, my first daw was Studio One & I plan to stick with it, if possible. But I'm sure that there are features that I may never find that I could really use & that is frustrating that I may feel like I've been missing something in the clutered look. I've looked at other SO alternatives, and their look seems a lot more focusted, easier to understand, and intuitive. You present a LOT of information, and of course us customers always want "more." I lost interest for a long time because I was faced with just too much and I was on visual overload. I only recently resumed my education. But I just wanted to share my experience with you. Allthough I offer this as MY experience, I think this would be a welcome feature to oithers, as well. And I'd like to see SO be more useful & targeted - especially to your novices & beginners. And I think an option for a simplfied interface option would help to attract & keep new customers, and offer the option for a look that is more intuitive and less cluttered. I'm not really cirtixizing your product, but although I'm already a fan, I'd like to feel better about SO & not feel the need to defect because of this issue. So I thought you should know., and I simply ask that you consider this. Out there in different communities, I usually see people rating the different daws to learn on that are the easiest and most intuitive to new users when they are asked. So my suggestion to keep the professional look that you offer, and build on it. But offer a more simplified interface of the basics. And as we grow & become familiar with SO, we can switch over to the "busy' full-featured professional version. Anyway, there you are. Thanks for reading & absorbing this. Of course, it's probably far too late in development to see this come about for SO6.
//Gary
