Prophet 600 firmware upgrade revisited

The Prophet 600 has 2 envelope generators with 3 possible destinations: filter cut-off, amplitude and oscillator A pitch (as part of the poly-mod controls). So far the envelopes had fixed destinations. The amplitude envelope controlled the - well - amplitude. And the filter envelope controlled the filter cut-off (via envelope amount in the filter sub-panel) and the oscillator A pitch (via the envelope amount in the poly-mod section when oscillator A poly-mod destination is switched on).  The 2022 firmware comes with a new option to change the envelope routing. The options on offer are similar to the JX8P (yes, it's not all bad - there are good things inside the JX8P). The filter envelope continues to control the filter cut-off in all cases, but apart from the Standard routing (see above) you can now choose (using the menu parameter "555" - pressing 5 three times): Poly-Amp : The amplitude envelope continues to control the amplitude but it also controls the oscillator A p...

The upgraded Prophet 600 offers two envelope shapes: exponential and linear. These are software generated and in versions 2.0 and 2.1 RC3 they are really exactly that: a pure exponential shape and a pure linear shape. Some users argue that a musical choice is somewhere in between. To the ear, the exponential shape drops very quickly at the beginning and then it tails off long. The linear shape on the other hand is thicker in the early decay phase but then it drops hard to zero. The human ear is stunningly sensitive to envelope shapes, even at very low volumes. In a recent nice YouTube video Starsky Carr directly compares the Prophet 5 (rev 4) envelopes to the Prophet 600 addressing exactly this finding:  Prophet 600 vs Prophet 5 // Is the 600 a better value option? - YouTube Now: the 2022 firmware has completely revised linear decay and release shapes, which are linear at the start but then tail off smoothly. To some degree the shape was inspired by the Prophet 5 rev 1/2 envel...