“I don’t hear too many women using that effect”: The mystery number one item UNIIQU3 would have in her dream studio

If you could design your dream studio without any concern whatsoever for budget, which pieces of gear would you pick? That’s the question we ask prominent musicians and producers in our My Forever Studio podcast, giving them six slots to fill with the music gear of their wildest fantasies.

The latest guest on the show is UNIIQU3, a DJ, producer and Jersey Club veteran who’s opened for Beyoncé and been sampled by Doechii. So yeah, her resume is pretty stacked.

In her fantasy Forever Studio, the Microdosing producer wastes no time picking out her first item, and explains how its underrepresentation among women producers adds to its allure: the talk box.

“I don’t hear too many women using that effect. I think it’s kind of a dude thing,” she says. “So I definitely need a talk box. I just think it’s so cool. I feel like that’s definitely on my bucket list of things I wanna have for my Forever Studio.”

This is her dream studio, bear in mind, so she’s keen to customise the imaginary talk box to make it her own, too…

“And since the sky’s the limit, we’re gonna customise it – it’s gonna be pink. Or maybe if it had an LED light on it that goes with your voice, and changes as you do a different pitch, that would be sick!”

She continues: “As a vocalist, I’ve always been figuring out ways to elevate how I sound, but also by still capturing my essence of UNIIQU3. I feel like at this point of my career, my voice is very recognisable, to the point where my fans are like, ‘That’s you!’

“So I have always been a fan of that. Those songs have always stuck out to me, when they came on the radio, and also recently just seeing acts like Chromeo use it live, I just think that’s so cool and playful, it’s so funky. And I’m pretty sure it’s a skill that I definitely would have to master in terms of just using my breath, and pronouncing the words right. But I feel like it would be able to take my productions to a different place.”

“But I feel like having that talk box, I would just make my own unique sound, and it wouldn’t be something that’s like a plugin default setting. It would be something that’s specifically unique to me, because nobody’s ever gonna sound the same using a talk box.”

Season 8 of MusicTech’s My Forever Studio is well underway, and we’re challenging some of modern music’s top producers and artists to put together their fantasy Forever Studio using whatever gear they could desire.

While it’s an environment for freedom, there are some strict rules in the Forever Studio. Guests are permitted a limited number of items in their creative space, so they have to choose carefully. There will be nostalgia. There will be anecdotes. There may be gags. But there will be no bundles!

Subscribe to My Forever Studio on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and check out all episodes so far via MusicTech.

Sam is the Associate News Editor for Guitar.com and MusicTech. Thoroughly immersed in music culture for the majority of his life, Sam has played guitar for 20 years, studied music technology and production at university, and also written for the likes of MusicRadar, Guitar World, Total Guitar and Metal Hammer.