The following example simulates how we would expect a non-paraphonic polyphonic synthesizer (i.e. one with an individual EG for each voice) to behave when multiple overlapping notes are played without being released.
The above can be contrasted with the following recording of how one paraphonic synthesizer (a Korg Volca Keys) actually handles the same situation in real life.
The first note (C) briefly peaks at a high volume ("Attack") when hit, then fades to a quieter level ("Sustain") as the key remains held down (in accordance with ADSR settings).
The previously-held C and F# return to full "attack" volume alongside, giving the false impression all three notes were hit simultaneously in a chord-like manner.
"[4] This does not explain how that 'new (commercial) meaning' of "paraphony" that in the context of electronic music instruments in 1977 has been turned around significantly into the 21st century from multiple complete polyphonic and monophonic sounds that can be layered in unison to a modern reinterpretation that focuses only on the ability of an electronic musical instrument to generate more than one note-frequency but with the inability to offer individual articulation of tone and/or loudness to each of the individual overlapping notes.
In this article, musician-writer Gordon Reid (seemingly incorrectly) identifies paraphony thus: "...a form of sound generation called 'Paraphonic' synthesis, prevalent in the late '70s and early '80s... why isn't 'paraphony' (if there is such a word) the same as polyphony?
The answer to this is obvious if we consider the articulation of individual notes played on the instrument...", which Reid illustrates with a diagram of a synthesiser with polyphonic initial sound-generation (a divide-down multiple-oscillator and multiple-amplifier architecture) that is, in turn, fed through a single filter and secondary amplifier arrangement.
[6] This was revisited in the following month's continuation of the "Synth Secrets" series where 'paraphony' was compared to polyphony in the context of synthesizers: "Figure 1 (above) shows the architecture of a 'divide-down' paraphonic synth on which only the first note played benefits fully from the Attack and Decay stages of the contour generator, and only the last note benefits from the Release.
Due to reinterpretations or misinterpretations of what paraphony may actually mean, many musicians (and some instrument-manufacturers) have remained with or returned to using such terms as duophonic and polyphonic to describe their two-note (such as modern reiterations of ARP's Oddyssey) or multi-note instruments (such as Behringer's Poly D) - regardless of the multiplicity of any sound-architecture that follows oscillators or the like - simply for a more-meaningful and more-descriptive, terse description of the instrument's note-generation capability and irrespective of the separation (or not) of tone and/or volume, per-note.