# Izotope neutron vs toontrack ezmix



## StillLife (Sep 24, 2017)

I am debating which of these two will speed up my mixing workflow the best. I work in Cubase 9, as a serious hobbyist, but I have always been more of a songwriter than a mixer, so these new tools are pretty alluring to me. Anyone who has tried both?


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## Mornats (Sep 24, 2017)

Ezmix seems like a toy to me since I got Neutron. Neutron has good starting points like Ezmix has (presets and the track assistant) but lets you tweak and refine to make them fit your sound.


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## Orchestrata (Sep 24, 2017)

Mornats said:


> Ezmix seems like a toy to me since I got Neutron. Neutron has good starting points like Ezmix has (presets and the track assistant) but lets you tweak and refine to make them fit your sound.



Seconded


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## StillLife (Sep 25, 2017)

Thank you both.
If I buy Neutron Elements now, to try it out, any chance I can get Neutron2 (coming out in a couple of weeks) for an upgrade prize? Or does Izotope only have upgrades within a generation of a plugin?


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## anp27 (Sep 25, 2017)

StillLife said:


> Thank you both.
> If I buy Neutron Elements now, to try it out, any chance I can get Neutron2 (coming out in a couple of weeks) for an upgrade prize? Or does Izotope only have upgrades within a generation of a plugin?



I would strongly recommend just downloading the Neutron (1) demo and using that until Neutron 2 comes out. The demo lasts for 30 days anyway and is *fully functional*. Neutron will be released sometime next month and I'm sure the demo will still work by the time Neutron 2 is released. I wouldn't buy Neutron Elements if I were you. What if you can't upgrade? What if you don't fall within the grace period? You would have wasted that money. And who knows? You might not even like Neutron.. so it's much smarter to demo first.


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## StillLife (Sep 26, 2017)

anp27 said:


> I would strongly recommend just downloading the Neutron (1) demo and using that until Neutron 2 comes out. The demo lasts for 30 days anyway and is *fully functional*. Neutron will be released sometime next month and I'm sure the demo will still work by the time Neutron 2 is released. I wouldn't buy Neutron Elements if I were you. What if you can't upgrade? What if you don't fall within the grace period? You would have wasted that money. And who knows? You might not even like Neutron.. so it's much smarter to demo first.


Thank you anp27! I didn't realize Izotope offers a demo (not very common in the plugin/library world). You saved me money!


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## ZenFaced (Sep 26, 2017)

I don't have it yet but Neutron all the way. Neutron analyzes your mix in real time and makes suggestions whereas EZ Mix are factory made presets out of the box which may or may not work within your overall mix.


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## Mornats (Sep 26, 2017)

It's the level of tweaking that's there in Neutron that simply isn't there in EZmix tha's a deal-breaker (see screenshot below). Neutron comes with presets, and has the track analysis feature which will get you to at least where EZmix is (providing one of the presets in EZmix is suitable). From there, you can adapt the settings to your particular track.

EZmix's appeal is that you can find a preset that's been designed by a top engineer, pop it on your track and not worry about knowing the ins and outs of mixing. It gives you a couple of knobs to alter the preset a bit and that's it. That's what some people want and it can provide a bit of polish without much thought. However, Neutron can do that too. Select a preset or use track assistant and it'll work (sometimes well, sometimes not to be fair) but it's a starting point and Izotope stress that it's a starting point. It's not a bad starting point in a lot of cases too in my experience. Then you can tweak all you want with full control. You can see the inner workings of the presets in Neutron too


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## anp27 (Sep 26, 2017)

StillLife said:


> Thank you anp27! I didn't realize Izotope offers a demo (not very common in the plugin/library world). You saved me money!



Demos are actually *very* common in the plugin world these days. I don't know a single company that doesn't offer a demo for their plugins.. iZotope, Waves, Soundtoys, all offer demos.


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## S.M Hassani (Sep 26, 2017)

Hi,

As indicated by our colleagues above, I'd focus on the upcoming Neutron 2 for serious mixing. The analyzer will teach you a lot about EQ and Compression, if you take time to study its good and bad "decisions".

In contrast, EZMix will not show you what it's doing. But, it has an advantage over Neutron as an effects plugin. Neutron will not offer Reverb, Amp modeling or sound mangling tools of any kind. Some of the EZMix expansions are quite interesting in that regard, like Ambient and LoFi.

FYI I picked up EZMix2 for $29 during Black Friday. You can go for that option down the line.

Back in August I got a crossgrade to the Music Production Bundle 2 for just $251 on JRRShop. Hopefully the upgrade to the upcoming MBP will be manageable. 

Cheers,

S.M


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