New firm Miltone offers part-for-part recreation of the Oberheim Four Voice System · News ⟋ RAThe 4Exp can run as a standalone four-voice synth or expand an original FVS to eight voices.
A new French firm called Miltone has opened pre-orders for its 4Exp, a hardware recreation of the Oberheim Four Voice System.
The first batch of 50 individually numbered units is available to order now, with each hand-built to order in Miltone’s Paris workshop.
The original Oberheim Four Voice System, introduced in 1975, was among the first commercially available polyphonic synthesizers. Built from four individual Synthesizer Expander Modules—each SEM a complete onosynth in its own right—wired together under keyboard control, it offered four-note polyphony to working musicians for the first time.
The 4Exp recreates this architecture in full. Each of its four voices features two discrete VCOs with sawtooth and PWM waveforms, hard sync, a two-pole state-variable filter, a triangle LFO, two ADS envelopes and an external input. The four voices feed an output module with per- voice volume and pan controls, stereo outputs and two headphone outputs.
Manfred Veber, creator of the Miltone 4Exp, is a well-known synth tech based in Paris, and one of the world’s leading experts on Oberheims. His workshop regularly had to recreate vintage parts to restore original Four Voice Systems, which gave birth to the project.
“We already had in mind the idea that we could remake the whole SEM exactly like it was with those new parts, as everything else is still quite easy to source,” he told Resident Advisor. “Then the idea of proposing a complete replica (not just an approximate clone) made much more sense and things came to life.”
The original plan was to offer the 4Exp as an extension for people who already own a Four Voice System, but Veber and his team altered the design to create a version that could be triggered over MIDI or CV/Gate, meaning anyone can incorporate it into their setup.
Apart from switching to modern printed circuit boards and updating the power supply, everything else is as close as it can be to the original machine, according to Veber. Two versions of the synth exist, both at a hefty price tag: one with an aluminium chassis (€9,990 plus VAT) and one wrapped in Tolex (€11,990 plus VAT).
Pre-orders are open and first deliveries are expected later this year.
Listen to a prototype 4Exp at this year’s Superbooth.