Texture
Forza features three powerful high-level controls that offer a quick way to alter the overall processing texture and density by changing multiple parameters in the background with a single adjustment: Thrust, Activity Balance, and Limiting Balance.
Thrust: Adjusting the Thrust control is the easiest way to achieve more or less overall processing without having to adjust individual settings.
Thrust affects Multiband AGC drive, Multiband Limiter drive, the Bass Clipper, and the Final Limiter.
Small adjustments to the Thrust control will have more of an effect on the Multiband AGCs, while larger adjustments yield more changes in the Multiband Limiters.
Activity Balance: The Activity Balance slider controls the amount of processing taking place in the Multiband AGC section compared to the Multiband Limiters.
Sliding the control toward "Compression" works the Multiband AGCs harder in comparison to the Multiband Limiters. Sonically, this tends to provide a more homogenized and compressed sound overall while allowing peaks and transients (such as the attack of a snare drum) to pass through. This can help create a more dynamic and "punchy" sound, especially with "peaky" material (think of well-recorded music such as Steely Dan).
Sliding the control toward "Limiting" relaxes the multiband AGCs and transfers more of the heavy lifting to the Multiband Limiters. This approach can make music sound less "squashed" and compressed overall but at the expense of attenuating transients.
Limiting Balance: Though the Multiband Limiters and Final Limiter are designed to work together, adjusting the balance between them can have a very audible effect on the texture of the processing.
Sliding the control toward "MB" relies more on the Multiband Limiters. This approach ensures that high peaks in one band won't affect the audio outside of that particular frequency range, but can cause unwanted density or spectral compromise in the Multiband Limiter section.
Sliding the control more toward "Final" relaxes the Multiband Limiters and drives the Final Limiter harder. This avoids building up too much multiband density and the "busy" sound that can result, but controlling peaks in one frequency range can sometimes cause audible artifacts elsewhere in the spectrum. Driving the final limiter too hard can also flatten transients to the point of making music with a high peak-to-average ratio sound lifeless, so adjust with care.
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