Those are all pre-patched synths. That doesn't count, honey ;-)
It wouldn't surprise me that the "demise of Initial Gain" in preset and/or typical keyboard synths has begun when those manuf's got all their prototypes back with a note saying something like "hey, I can't switch it off!", just as Dieter explained.

After that they started to diminish its role, and tucked it away -- preferably in the upper left corner -- and disguised it under a different name. "Volume" or something non-descript...
A bit later the VCA almost completely disappeared, and served the humble role to provide for the "volume envelope", and/or tremelo-duty.

A shame.

As long as the player uses the classical VCO-VCF-ENVELOPE paradigm, an initial gain is most likely not necessary, indeed. Anything else, and you'll need initial gain.

One can't have enough VCA's in his system. *With* initial gain.
The most underrated function block in a synth system.

_g

--- In Doepfer_a100@yahoogroups.com , "KeldS" <keldsorensen@...> wrote:
>
> Well i guess it's there but if you look on a Minimoog the VCA doesn't seem to have an initial gain pot. The prophet 5, the Obxa and arp odyssey have non either - just to name a few. All modulars have but not hardwired synths.
>
> Keld
>
> >
> > "Initial Gain" is not a common feature [on a VCA]
> > Hmm, I beg to differ. A VCA w/o initial gain is not a VCA, IMHO.
> > Actually, I don't even know of any VCA's w/o initial gain... :-)
> >
>