Miltone 4EXP revives Oberheim Four Voice with full-size replica

For most players, a replica like the Miltone 4EXP is the closest they will ever get to an Oberheim Four Voice without collector-level money, constant maintenance, or the risk that comes with a half-century-old synth. That is the real appeal here: not a tribute in the vague, cosmetic sense, but a full-size rebuild of one of the most important analog polys ever made.

The original Oberheim Four Voice landed in the mid-1970s, when Oberheim’s 4- and 8-Voice line became the world’s first commercially available polyphonic synths and the first to offer digital patch memory storage. Tom Oberheim has said the Four Voice let a musician play up to four keys at a time, with each key controlling a complete true analog synthesizer. That architecture is what gave the instrument its character. Each voice was essentially its own SEM-based synth, so notes could breathe, drift and shimmer with a little more personality than later polysynths that pushed harder toward uniformity.

Miltone has leaned into that history instead of sanding it down. Superbooth describes the Paris builder as making original-spec analog instruments with a focus on vintage architecture and mechanical detail, and the 4EXP fits that brief tightly. Gearnews described the prototype as identical down to the components and custom potentiometers, with through-hole construction and a traditional panel layout. The voice structure stays true to the old formula: two VCOs with sync, the classic 12 dB/oct state-variable VCF, two ADS envelope generators and an LFO. The output section adds per-voice volume and panning, plus master and headphone outputs.

The tactile details matter just as much as the circuit diagram. Miltone’s custom potentiometers are meant to echo the original ball-bearing-based feel that made the old Oberheim hardware so unusual under the fingers. That kind of mechanical faithfulness is the difference between a polished imitation and something that actually tries to behave like the machine it copies. CatSynth TV called the demo a meticulous re-creation of the legendary Four Voice, and that is the right frame: the 4EXP is chasing the feel, not just the silhouette.

It is not a cheap nostalgia piece. Gearnews put the finished price at €11,955, and the current prototype uses CV/Gate only, with MIDI planned soon. That pricing and feature set tell you exactly who Miltone is aiming at: serious collectors, working synth players and vintage-circuit obsessives who want the Four Voice experience in a new build that can be serviced, played and trusted. SynthAnatomy called it a new authentic through-hole, hand-made clone, and this year’s appearance alongside NRSynth’s Quatuor shows that the Four Voice has become a real boutique niche again. The old Oberheim topology still has pull because it still sounds and behaves like itself.