Hi!
A few mockups focusing on track/bus headers, but also with a differently coloured automation track:
Comments, please 
Hi Thorwil
I like the changed colours in B very much; the whole thing seems more cohesive and easier to read. I donāt know if itās familiarity or not, but I like the current-style buttons best. The large letters arenāt as clear and the icons look rather confusing. D is interesting, but I wonder about getting rid of so much of the track list; it could get rather confusing. Iād like to see it in action though. So, my vote (for what its worth) is for B, with D a curious second.
Thanks for your efforts.
Matt
Strange as it may seem I vote for keeping things as they are. It works, it is clear and it does the job. The icons are confusing and the stylized letters really add nothing.
In the heat of a traking session, the sort of detailing you have treated here is of the least importance (for me at least).
Still I appreciate your effort to push the UI beyond what it currently offers.
Lincoln
i think i like c and d the best. i think the icons need to be made more clear though, they look a little busy at the moment. the only other issue i have with d is that it looks almost like a rendering error, so maybe (if ardourās current canvas supports it and it doesnāt take too much performance) have a subtle transparent area covering the track under the headerā¦ iāve done a (quick and nasty) mockup of what i mean:
certainly looks neater than the current ui though, keep it up! 
porl
I think I like the original design the most, if only itās because I got used to it. So of your mockups I would prefer version A with the original buttons but would also prefer if the meters stay at the right side of the header.
The biggest problem I have with the current design is that now with the track header faders the space to select a track is very limited. Maybe the track should be selectable by single click on the label and double click to change the label.
In my opinion the faders should be optional as well - first as a global option when creating new tracks and second on a per track basis. I normaly mix externally and those faders would only be useful to me when submixing a few channels because of limited physical in- and outputs.
OT: Last year you did a conception for an export redesign - is there something in the making? Currently I would be very interested in your concept for track export with pre/post fader/plugin options.
Comment from a new ardour user:
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I like the changed colors in automated track.
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Dont like icons or stylized letters [the original design is immediate and functional], and meters on the left.
how about something consistent with the toolbar buttons, like this:
http://idiosympathy.com/images/buttons.jpg
(sorry my mocking-up skills are rather limited)
I also think sticking with āMā and āSā for mute/solo is wise, as most users with DAW experience will recognize them immediately.
although, upon further reflection, if all the icons in the app went to the faded-with-a-shadow look like in mockups C and D, that could be cool. (though perhaps they could be a bit simpler.)
Thanks for all the comments!
I agree the icons are not clear enough.
porl: My first idea was to make the track headers (partly) transparent, but then thought actually being able to work in that space would be more useful. Just making the unused space somewhat transparent might help with orientation without looking odd.
the C.L.A.: I moved the meters to the left because with many short regions (zoomed out), the right-side meters make it harder to see where the headers end and the canvas starts. For me, at least.
Oh, and the mockups are also about the selection problem: I removed the entries. Single click for selection and double-clicking (+ context menu option) for renaming. Because selection happens much more often then renaming.
The export dialog might become a project in the finnish summer of code.
cbreeze34: thatās surely an option. Some DAWs use M and S, others donāt. Once in a while I just have to try to come up with icons for these
i agree with cbreeze34 regarding the m and s buttons. apart from that i think the icons are a great idea. iād like to see that used elsewhere in the program too, such as getting rid of the āold fashioned on screen buttonā look of the transport and making them look more modern. obviously usability comes first here, but i think that may improve the desirability of the more aesthetically minded folk out there
porl
porl: and when done well, aesthetics and useability go hand-in-hand. i wouldnāt mind having just simple (non-3D) icons in a row like what youād see in a typical Gnome/KDE app, with a little emphasis of some sort on mouse-over. i think it could be done while maintaining Ardourās professional look. (though iām no UI designer.)
cbreeze34: i like that idea actually, subtle icons that donāt make the interface look messy, but react (saturation increase? drop shadow? slight zoom in?) with mouseover and selection clearly. i think once cairo is used more through the interface things will look a lot cleaner if they go down this path: nice antialiased icons etc.
porl
I like the first best. The black background is a little disturbing to me. Good idea to have the meters along the fader, it looks more natural (though one can discuss whether they should overlap).
Great!
In this design all is in-place and coherent, for my taste.
03b [the second] is perfectly functional and easy to see, maybe too black for the majorityā¦
[not me, I love black backgrounds because of eyes-fatiguing issues in brighter ones].
Only a little note:
maybe the āMā and āSā letters a bit smaller?
Ooh, Iām liking these.
Transport looks great, maybe the shuttle control could be a bit narrower (vertically) and it could have a texture like the faders do. The buttons definitely look less cluttered. Though I am a bit against square 3D buttons, for reasons starting with āwinā and ending with ādows 95āā¦
One other thing thatās really effective in those mockups is ānestingā the automation track header within that of the parent track. This gives a good visual cue that the automation is āpart ofā the track. It could probably be even more prominent than it is.
Thanks for the comments!
I will likely try a less harsh background.
cbreeze34: I actually thought of applying the same texture to he shuttle control but was too lazy
the second image is brilliant, i really like this. it is getting much less like a ādark gtk appā and more like a modern daw look. the only thing i donāt like in that image is the coloured faders, i think they look a little busy, which to me goes against the whole reason for changing the headers for clarity. the meters integrated with the faders is a really clever idea
oh, the transport without button effects is much nicer.
porl
edit:
just looking more at the second screenshot, and i have a couple of thoughts.
i think the black background really helps to keep things clear and more easily distinguishable. i think the automation track should maybe have a slight background tint of the same hue as the track it is attached to though to make the connection more obvious. i like the nested look of the automation header, but i think maybe the background colour of it should be less of a contrast.
i think that the shuttle thingy (canāt remember what it is called) needs to be made more obvious as to itās function, and maybe a little more compact and out of the way (that might be disagreed on by others that use it more though).
the transport looks great with the button backgrounds removed, but maybe the āhoverā and āselectedā effects should be like the small buttons next to the āslide editā dropdown. this would also make it a simple gtkrc edit to do i think.
this comment kind of contradicts my last, but itās just another thought. the subtle 3d look of the header buttons is nice, but i think it looks odd when the other buttons on the toolbar etc look so different. i think they all need a simple and subtle common look. maybe it is time to look at a different engine to clearlooks? i played with murrina a while back and it looked really interestingā¦ i think the idea of flat buttons etc that either pop up or get highlighted on hover/selection is really fitting with ardourās look and feel.
porl
just had another thoughtā¦ the horizontal meters look cool, but i think they will be a problem for people with elaborate multi-out setups (imagine 8 meters inside the fader for a 7.1 mix output for instance). maybe the look of the meters needs to change to work with more channels without taking too much room? perhaps getting rid of the seperate-rectangles look of them and make one standard width/height meter that shows left and right etc inside it, dynamically scaling the width of each channel to fit in the area provided?
porl
porl: channels on the meters need space, be it vertical or horizontal. Vertical means at some point more width is required, taking away from the canvas. Horizontal means the meters can be partly hidden on low tracks. Larger height tracks offer plenty of space in this direction.
Having clear separation has the advantage of clearly showing the number of channels even if thereās no signal.
Thanks for your thoughts!