Thanks, figured it out.  What are the changes besides the dark theme?

Awesome! I wished for that since 8.5.... Now the console view is as clearly as it was before the X series!

Looks nice but I'll stick with Panu's Darkside using Duckbar :)


However it is nice to see the Bakers spending some time on this....

I agree. It is a beautiful work area! The darker theme looks very professional to me. Won't make you a better engineer but you'll look good screwing up your mix! LOL. Hats off to Cakewalk for this one.

Andrzej Salm
I hate to spoil the party, but I am not entirely sold on the new look. I mean, I like it a lot and those orange buttons are great.
But, adding a colour to a track results in a mere narrow strip at the bottom in console view which renders the feature rather useless to be honest. It would be great if at least the volume slider (and possibly the gain and pan dials) would change the colour too. It's not of much help as it is.

yes, I wish they were full color tracks in the dark theme as well.
but to be totally honest.. I've already adjusted to that .
however if need be, you can always use mercury if you must have your full color strips.
 
"my party is not spoiled" because of a few colored track strips..lol.
not something I would call "useless" either. far from it. I've adjusted fine to the color strip in dark theme the way it is.
 
I do however think it is important once in a while to give credit and be thankful for changes we have been waiting a long time for then simply look for negatives and complain.
im speaking hypothetical of course.

BrFrBob
The strip colors suit me perfectly.  I can still group my instruments by color without changing to overall flow of the console.  I'm like the Count from Sesame Street.  I scan the console and stop - "One, two, three...three blue strips.  Ahh, ahh, ahh".  This may actually save my sanity, if it isn't too late already.

 same here.
you know I have most/if not all my tracks grouped together so its not like I need to have them all lit up.
totally engulfed in color groups. with a good track lay out the color strip works fine for me / along with the Track Icons and Track Names as well. I think I can locate my tracks easy enough. would like the option to have them all color..sure. 
but its not a show stopper by any means and most certainly not "Useless".

smallstonefan
Love it! The track colors do get lost though. It would be great to see the color made more prominent, like this:
 

that's a great idea.

You could use colored tape to color the tracks. It would be a mess to clean up after mixing though.
  
 

IMO, selected clips don't show the MIDI data as well, contrast is off, to me. I'm going to see if I can tweak this. it's the only criticism I have so far of the new theme, which mostly I like.

Like the dark theme a lot .
Thanks ,cakewalk 

+1 for the dark side

I know people like the new theme overall, however...
 
Our minds are incredibly powerful at differentiating between objects based on depth cues because it does it constantly when we look at real world objects. The early UI designers knew this fact and used it to great effect when UIs became more complicated.
 
Flat themes throw all of this out the window, and instead require us to spend more time trying to figure out what we can interact with and what is just informational, where one thing ends and another starts. Requiring mouse-overs to make controls discoverable is a bad way to make up for the loss of being able to subconsciously differentiate between UI elements.
 
This trend started when Microsoft brought their Metro theme from Windows Phone over to the desktop in Windows 8. Flat themes might work on a phone where the UIs are much more simple and there are no overlapping windows. So all of this is based on a phone that lost the platform wars and rumors are MS is giving up on it (I say as someone that still has a Windows Phone - so please... I'm not a hater)
 
That's my main complaint with Windows 10, as I have closed/moved/resized the wrong overlapping windows much more frequently now that it has become harder to tell where one thing ends and another starts. To me that isn't a step forward, it is a step back.
 
It doesn't really have anything to do with skeuomorphism, although being overly 3D-ish isn't a good thing either. It is possible to make beautiful modern looking UIs that still contain depth cues. I just hope the Mercury theme isn't removed at some point. And that new non-flat themes are added in the future as well.

More love for the new theme here! I just had to reset some custom windows theme changes to get it right.

Love the Tungsten theme. 

Is the new theme only for Sonar Platinum? all you guys seem to have SPLAT.