Sarah Grayson
Voice actor (Gone Home)
Who are you, and what do you do?
I'm Sarah Grayson and I'm a voice actor. Ever since I was a little kid watching Saturday morning cartoons, I'd dreamt about being a part of this amazing world of voiceover. It wasn't until a chance meeting with a voiceover coach in 2008 that it suddenly began turning into a reality. Six fantastic years later and I've had the pleasure of lending my voice to commercials, non-broadcast works, and video games.
The most recently published game was Gone Home by The Fullbright Company, in which I play the protagonist's younger sister, Sam.
What hardware do you use?
My primary microphone is an MXL 990 condenser mic with a shock mount and pop filter. The mic is run through a DigiDesign Mbox 2 Mini and into a well-loved MacBook. I also have a Blue Yeti USB mic that I use with this great little portable sound booth when I'm away from home.
Of course, when a gig requires a visit to a professional studio, there is much more fun and fancy hardware involved.
And what software?
My MacBook is running OS X. Beyond that, I'm afraid that answering this truthfully is going to highlight an embarrassing wonkiness in my process. I record with GarageBand, but I edit with Peak LE. Ideally, I'd be doing everything through one program, and initially did with Peak, but it developed a nasty bug along the way and everything I record through it now sounds like I'm talking at half speed under water. That's when I turned to GarageBand for the recording side, but I still edit in Peak since that's where I'm most proficient. It's an odd system, but it'll work until I get things sorted.
What would be your dream setup?
That's a really tough question to answer. I would of course love to put together a top-of-the-line home studio. I think back to the studios I've recorded in over the years and it would be a dream to model my setup after any one of them. If I had unlimited funds, I'd probably just call up an audio engineer friend of mine and tell him to pull out all the stops.
After posing this hypothetical to him, it sounds like I'd start with a Neve 1073 console, Manley VoxBox Compressor, and Manley Massive Passive EQ.. and some fun acoustic foam soundproofing, of course. I love that stuff. I'd also upgrade my laptop and its software for when I record on the road.