Wow! Really beautiful!
I guess, the active track is "Guitars" with that glowing light under the channel fader (Console View)? 
Very cool!
 

I would simply be happy if in one of these upcoming updates, they just made it so that a foreground and background color could be selected for a track, and any new recording on that track struck to that scheme.  (Of course you could change the later clip if you wanted to - but it is a waste of time to constantly changing new clips to match the track.)

Thing with the Imperial skin IIRC is that the guy who made it says it's open source, and that you can mess around with it as long as you don't monetize on it. I am completely useless with graphic design and stuff, but I can imagine that someone with the know how could take all the graphic elements from that skin and adapt them for Sonar.
Those transport buttons are so sexy!
Maybe we could ask the House Of White Tie for permission?

That particular theme is a mod of the Imperial theme that incorporates changes from another mod of Imperial.  Specifically full folder support for the MCP.  The MODers name is "Lucas" - he has done some outstanding work.
 
I doubt WT would be up for something competitive with Reaper.  The reason I posted this was to make a couple of points; one of which is that the bar is high for themes.  I don't particularly care about the hardware look-alike aspect, but being fully customizeable (sp?) with totally custom toolbars & menus based on a totally open set of actions that are also available for scripting IS important.  That a hardware look-like happens to be workflow friendly is coincidental for my use.
 
Sonar has some serious advantages.  IMO, stepping up the flexibility would put it way ahead of the pack.
 
What Andrew posted is VERY sexy and VERY promising.  I'm looking forward to seeing the implementation on my own machine 
 
 

Now all we need is for Cake to release it...

trtzbass
I gotta say...

The quality and the looks of Sonar's interface were a deciding factor in my choosing a DAW.
Having said that, if we're going into skinning Sonar, can we make it look like this please?
http://www.houseofwhiteti...erial/wt_imperial.html

(Sorry I don't know how to link an image)

That would be great in Sonar. I bought Reaper purely to use that skin. I love Sonar Platinum as my 1st choice DAW, but I do enjoy the optical break of the different skins in Reaper.

Imperial looks kinda similar to the console software in UA's Apollo. Anyone know if it's the same designer?

Craig - Here are more samples of his work.  Gorgeous stuff
http://www.houseofwhitetie.com/
 
I don't see what you mentioned, but a bunch of the images are broken for me.

BobF
Craig - Here are more samples of his work.  Gorgeous stuff
http://www.houseofwhitetie.com/
I don't see what you mentioned, but a bunch of the images are broken for me.

Why not tie up with them for Sonar UI - Why reinventing wheel?

Honestly, I think Cake needs to focus on being able to get users into designing skins so we can have things like Imperial in Sonar. Plenty of apps had open skin development where people could really tear the interface apart and replace it with custom designs that went far beyond colours.
 
Winamp anyone? This is the skin I've been using for over a decade:
 

 
Being able to completely reskin the interface would really send a wave through the userbase and I think we'd start seeing quite a few people designing some impressive stuff.