Who are you, and what do you do?
Hello! My name is Logan Cunningham and I'm an actor in New York City. I'm also voice actor-in-residence at Supergiant Games, an independent seven-person game developer headquartered in San Francisco. Our very first game is Bastion, which was released in July of 2011. I voiced the character Rucks, who serves as the game's narrator.
What hardware do you use?
I'm a lifelong PC user since I grew up with them (my Dad was an engineer at IBM for years and years) and I currently use a very pedestrian HP desktop. I got it a little over a year ago as an emergency replacement when my small form-factor (which wasn't even a Shuttle, it was basically a poor man's Fragbox) decided to stop booting into Windows. I had that little guy for nearly six years and actually built it with the help of Supergiant co-founder Amir Rao on the floor of his Columbia dorm. It was loud as hell but I could take it absolutely anywhere, which matters here in New York-it's good to keep your life fairly portable (three different addresses in a single year..!). I loved it literally to death. It now enjoys its eternal rest in my closet.
The new HP has been awesome so far-way more computer than I've ever had before. I've got a 22 inch Samsung LCD, Klipsch Promedia 2.1 speakers, the keyboard that came with the HP, an Xbox 360 controller which is plugged in at all times (I play most games on PC), and a Logitech MX300 mouse I've had since 2003. My mousepad says Fry's Electronics and my desk is Ikea.
Since Bastion suddenly made me a voice actor, I recently got my first microphone, which is this crazy-looking thing called a Snowball from Blue. One thing that makes voice over and voice acting easier than the other kind is that you can audition from your own home and on your own time! It's a welcome change from having an audition (that could only take a few minutes) in some chic, hard-to-find SoHo office that kills the whole day.
I like taking pictures and recently got a Lumix LX-5 and it's really impressed me so far. I carry it with me often. It almost got me ejected from the Spike TV VGAs. My phone is an iPhone 3G that I've had since 2009. I have a thing where I can't really listen to music while I'm moving or going from point A to point B (unless in a car). I don't like wearing headphones and like earbuds even less. I put music on my phone for the first time only last year in preparation for a bus ride to Boston for PAX East. I've never had an iPod or the like. I'm utterly incapable of making playlists or mixes and tend to listen to whole albums over and over. I had a portable CD player that only ever saw use on airplanes. I finally retired it this past year when a small child on a JetBlue flight gave me a pretty nasty, perfectly executed side-eye.
And what software?
I was a Firefox devotee forever but switched to Chrome a few months ago. I generally prefer it as it feels somehow faster, but it crashes on me every now and again. I probably have between 15 and 20 tabs open when I'm online. I have a deep, rich hatred for iTunes and have been using Winamp for about 10 years, which several of my friends find hugely amusing. I'm in regular daily contact with the rest of Supergiant despite being on the other side of the country. We have our own social network in the form of Yammer, which is like a closed Facebook for businesses. We keep track of all our various daily and weekly tasks via Basecamp and utilize Dropbox a great deal. Major creative decisions are generally resolved in long, heated Skype calls. I recently experienced the "share screen" feature on Skype and it completely blew my mind.
I naturally work most with Supergiant Audio Director Darren Korb, who lives about 15 minutes from me. My recording "booth" is his bedroom closet with moving/furniture blankets draped all over its doors. He records me and most other sounds with a Shure KSM32 microphone running into a Digidesign Digi 002 interface. He's got a 2.4ghz Quadcore Mac Pro tower with 8G of RAM, and his recording software is Logic Pro version 8.
What would be your dream setup?
This is a bit of a toughie since, as you might have surmised, I'm sort of half-Luddite and survive on very little as far as technology goes. I couldn't get specific with hardware, but I'd love to finally take the time to seriously research and build an awesome gaming PC with a top of the line graphics card, since I've never had that before. I want a giant (24" at least) dual-monitor setup though I have no idea what I'd actually do with it. I'd be eternally grateful if someone designed the perfect mousepad/wristpad thing. I have a callus on the bottom left of my right palm. It's my Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II callus. Been there since '98 or so. What else -- a nice powerful laptop would be great, but I'd only use it when traveling. Whenever I visit my parents I have to use my Mom's ancient ThinkPad which is so slow at times it's made me cry. I dream of one day owning an arsenal of Leica cameras. A Bolex 16mm camera is one of the most beautiful machines I've ever seen or used, so I'd love to have one of those too.
Actually, come to think of it, my dream "setup" would be a large, dusty, barn-like loft somewhere in NYC -- a fixer-upper that I wouldn't need to fix up. Crumbling brick, creaky wood floors, peeling paint, all of it. Big enough for me to pace the length of it with ease - I spend an absurd amount of my time pacing. I'd want it to have a rehearsal and performance space - something I could comfortably fit a small group of people into, and isolated enough for me to do all my silly vocal warm-ups without fear of disturbing anyone. It'd have a decently-sized living room area - something I've never, ever had in my almost ten years in NYC. I hope to one day hook up the 2009 Limited Edition Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 I got as a gift from Supergiant. It lives in its box atop a bookcase because I have literally no space to set it up anywhere in my current (tiny) place. In my dream setup I would live alone with two cats. Maybe three. Plus a chameleon that would live in a giant Ficus in the kitchen.