EZmix 1 was explicitly marketed towards two demographics:
With the advent of Neural DSP, IK Multimedia T-Racks, and UAD Spark, why does anyone use this "toy"? ezmix 1 vst
1. The CPU efficiency is insane. You can run 40 instances of EZMix 2 on a laptop from 2015. Try doing that with Kontakt or Ozone. EZmix 1 was explicitly marketed towards two demographics:
2. The "Multi" mode. While V1 didn't have it, the legacy feature is the multi-FX rack. You can chain a compressor, a delay, a reverb, and a filter in one window with six macro knobs controlling all four simultaneously. That is sound design gold. You can run 40 instances of EZMix 2 on a laptop from 2015
3. "Mixing by accident." Sometimes, you don't know what a track needs. You scroll through "Ambient Guitars" and land on "Lo-Fi Radio." It wasn't what you planned, but it's what the song needed. EZMix encourages happy accidents.
The defining characteristic of EZmix 1 is its user interface—or lack thereof. Upon opening the plugin, the user is greeted with a list of presets and a single "Edit" window that offers two sliders: Gain and Dry/Wet. That is it.
In an era where VST channel strips often mimic the complexity of analog hardware with endless knobs for attack, release, ratio, and threshold, EZmix 1 took the opposite approach. It relied on a database of settings crafted by professional mix engineers. Whether you needed a "Snare Top" sound or a "Vocal Air" treatment, the assumption was that an expert had already dialed in the best settings; the user just needed to load it up.