machineheadusa

[machineheadusa]

I brought a pair of 'in ear' microphones with me to #Berlin. During a meander, I happened upon a cellist busking in a tunnel, accompanied by a chorus of trains passing overhead. This is what I recorded and photographed. It's not a vivid example of an array of individual noises in a 360 sound field, because it was just he and I, but I like it and urge you to put on some headphones to listen. More to come! #binaural #sound #recording #microphones #360audio #virtualreality #vr #spatialsound #tools #gear #streetrecordings #leica #leicaimages #travel #roland #vrdays #vrla #ciclopefestival @roland_us (at Berlin, Germany)

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Music’s Cool with Chilly Gonzales

“Did you ever wonder why you get goosebumps when you hear your favorite song? It’s because that song is connected to all the songs that came before it. It’s insane but all the musicians through all the eras, cultures and styles use the same musical tools…And maybe just maybe it takes a music nerd like me, Chilly Gonzales, to break down these techniques and connections. So let’s take a peek behind the Pop curtain and finally answer the question:

What’s cool? Well…. Music’s Cool with Chilly Gonzales!” - Chilly Gonzales

He’s done four episodes so far, and kicks off with Daft Punk. Followed by episodes with Weezer, Drake and Lana Del Ray. Check them out!

BTW: If you don’t have an Apple Music account, you can try it out for 3 months, free!

Listen here!

[machineheadusa]

IDEO NY: Sonic Shower By Alex Gallafent

Every now and then we stumble upon something worth sharing. NYC based IDEO, a global design company who’s mission is to create positive impact through design, takes a ‘SONIC SHOWER’.  Check out the blog and link (here) to a playlist of music that could easily inspire you to do the same.

https://www.ideo.com

MAY 18 BY ALEX GALLAFENT

It’s never been easier to share music with each other: Here’s a link, there’s a playlist, and off you go. At the same time, my experience of music has become more and more private, more and more mediated by headphones.

Unless I’m at a gig or a concert, it’s rare that I listen to music in the presence of other people. There’s background music, sure, but that feels different—I’m not really listening. Here in New York, there’s always live music on subway platforms, but we don’t listen by choice (and while it’s often great, it can also grate).

Listening to music with others need not be limited to experiences of live music, though. Deliberately listening to recorded music with other people can be a magical experience. That’s especially true if you’re hearing it in a context that's a little unexpected, such as a conference room.

It’s a luxury to be in the same space as others and not need to talk—to just be present.

In our New York studio, we’ve been gathering for a series of shared listening sessions, called the Sonic Shower. It’s a really simple format:

• EVERY MONTH or so • we spend 15 MINUTES • first thing in the MORNING • listening to 3 TO 5 PIECES OF RECORDED MUSIC • from AROUND THE WORLD • that are selected and ordered around A THEME • and PLAYED ON SPEAKERS in a room • while people listen over COFFEE • and glance at light PROGRAM NOTES, if they so choose

Three things we like about the Sonic Shower

1. IT SUPPORTS OUR COMMUNITY It’s just a lovely thing to start the day with music. And it’s lovely to be in the company of colleagues without the pressures of drumming up conversation. Listening together creates a delicate, light experience of community that works for everyone, even if you don’t feel much like chatting first thing in the morning.

2. IT’S A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION At IDEO, it’s our job to seek inspiration wherever we can find it. It fuels great design by keeping our teams engaged. We’re great at hunting down visual inspiration in art, type, and digital experiments. But it’s easy to forget to open our ears up in the same way—to expose our brains and hearts to sounds we’ve never encountered before. Music is sonic storytelling—it opens up imaginative doors that we’d be crazy not to go through. Each Sonic Shower is a mix of songs that are somewhat easy (or familiar) and somewhat challenging (or likely different to what you might normally hear).

3. IT ENGENDERS GRATITUDE In so much of our work, we’re interrogating experiences—figuring out what underpins them and picking out aspects that we can replicate or evolve. But during a Sonic Shower we just listen to the music. We don’t feel an obligation to discuss it or derive meaning from it there and then. It’s a luxury to be in the same space as others and not need to talk—to just be present. And, while it does help our work, we don’t treat the Sonic Shower like work. That gives us permission to receive the music as a precious gift. And gratitude feels good.

Here’s what we listened to at a winter-themed session in December. You can find the music on Spotify here.

HVILD (2009) by Hugi Gudmundsson

Now based in Denmark, Gudmundsson is one of the bright lights of contemporary Icelandic composition. A few years ago, in a neat nod to IDEO, he was awarded one of the country’s most prestigious arts prizes: the Optimism Award.

Hvild means "rest." It was written for a friend’s funeral and includes text about carrying water over a mountain...

SNOW (1954) by Irving Berlin; performed by Rosemary Clooney and The Mellomen

This is one of the stand-out songs from Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. The movie version features the four leads—Clooney, Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Vera-Ellen—singing the song together on a train. As you do.

DER LEIERMANN (1828) music by Franz Schubert; poem by Wilhelm Müller; performed by Jonas Kaufmann (tenor) and Helmut Deutsch (piano)

This is the final song of Winterreise (Winter Journey), Schubert’s monumental song cycle for voice and piano. Grab a whisky and listen to the whole thing sometime—it’s an intimate, crystalline marvel.

Der Leiermann translates as "The Hurdy-Gurdy Man." The hurdy-gurdy is an instrument where, to produce notes, you crank a handle that turns a greased wheel against its strings. Here’s the text of the song:

Behind the village stands a hurdy-gurdy man, cranking his instrument with frozen fingers. His begging bowl is always empty; no one listens to his music, and the dogs growl at him. But his playing never stops. “Strange old man. Shall I come with you? Will you play your hurdy-gurdy to accompany my songs?”

The piano does so much more than simply accompany the voice. Elsewhere in the cycle, it becomes a powerful storm, the rush of water beneath ice, a creaking weathervane, and much more. Listen for how, in this song, it conjures up the sparse drone of the hurdy-gurdy.

WINTER DARKNESS (2014) performed by Nils Økland (Hardanger fiddle) and Georg Buljo (voice)

The Hardanger fiddle is a traditional stringed instrument from Norway. Contemporary players such as Økland have coaxed the fiddle into modern music, working with collaborators near and far.

Buljo has done much the same with joik (pronounced ‘yoyk’), one of the oldest vocal traditions in Europe. A joik is both a style and a song form, deeply rooted in the Sami culture of Sweden, Norway, and northern Finland.

All that said, this is a pretty traditional piece—but modern, close recording lets us hear every crack in Buljo’s voice and every bow across the strings.

Does it sound like "winter darkness" to you?

[machineheadusa]

"When Sound has Nowhere to Hide" Insight on the Sound Oscar Contenders

by: Stephen Dewey, Machine Head

Oscar recognition is nigh for the sound work that everyone hears but may not necessarily ‘hear’. I’m going to let the Academy members decide which is the more deserving work, but I will point out that the effectiveness of the sound effects/design is inherently and inextricably predicated by so many things around it, i.e. music, dialog, acting and most definitely photography.  This year, my two personal sound favorites, Gravity and All Is Lost highlight this in story lines that portray solitary survival battles of the protagonists, both piloting small craft in vast worlds that are lethal to unprotected human life. Remarkably, my third sound favorite, ‘ Rush ‘ also has a similar element in it’s storyline. 

Lastly, that third film, Rush, also deals with protagonists who, while sharing a world in which they spar, do so in the solitudes of the cockpit. It is here that the real world order of volumes is re ordered by the film makers so that we hear the signaling sound cues of the machinery that the driver’s ear is trained to pick out of the deafening roar of the engines. Refreshingly, unlike many sound winners, sheer volume is not the path to the podium. And the winner is…..the audience !!

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Other America

Lights Camera Action…Going Guerrilla Style with Director James Coulson

GearHead….“For as much as ones tools are important it’s the subject that reigns supreme. This is a moving story about living on Cap Hatteras island since the beaches were closed to protect local wildlife.  It’s beautifully shot.  If you are curious about what he’s shooting with, blogger Karin Gottschalk of #Planet5D shares his travel kit with us along with a few thoughts.  

James Coulsons Other America is a 12-part series of short but pithy movie snapshots made during a road trip across some of the more out-of-the-way parts of the lower 48 states. Traveling self-funded and solo, it was his chance to see the America that rarely if ever makes it to the silver screen. Coulson has gained a rare trust from subjects he only just met, putting them at their ease, capturing their innermost thoughts. The result is a modern day digital movie equivalent of Dorothea Lange and other photographers of the Farm Security Administration.

"These are the sorts of real life travelogues about America that I most want to see. In fact, I would love to see these being done everywhere in the world."

Other America

———————————————————————

Canon EOS 7D digital camera

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM lens

Zoom H4n audio recorder

Sony wireless lavaliere microphone

Manfrotto tripod

Headphones

[machineheadusa]

A Message From Thomas Dolby

A message just in from a mate, known to a lot of you...Thomas Dolby.

"Hi Stephen !

I'm playing at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery LA on Nov 22nd. We've just added an early 6pm show that might be of interest to your friends. I'm doing my film ”The Invisible Lighthouse“ with live songs, score, narration by me, and live Foley by Blake Leyh. Followed by an armchair chat with two hot film/TV composers--Dave Porter (Breaking Bad) and Michael Giacchino (Lost/Star Trek).

Here's a trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFxbkZqznB0

and if they want tickets they're at my web site http://www.thomasdolby.com/. 

See you there. Thomas."

“I’ve seen the show twice, I can say that  the humor and inventiveness that Thomas brought to his music is very evident in this very original show. The audience experiences him as a film maker, pithy raconteur, performer and MC. I don't want to give anything away but let's just say that this is in no way another 80s greatest hits cash in. If you are inclined to treat yourself; go.” Stephen Dewey, MH.

Citypaper By Chris Wirtalla  describes the show….

…. Equal parts documentary,X-Files mystery, and old time radio show, Dolby and foley artist Blake Leyh created a stunning live soundtrack to his film about a recently-decommissioned lighthouse near his childhood home in East Anglia, UK.

Legendary DJ Richard Blade said this about the show…

“The Thomas Dolby show at the American Film Institute tonight was one of the most incredible live performances I've EVER seen. He played the score live for the film he shot "The Invisible Lighthouse" and interacted with the screen and dialogue in a way I have never seen before. The audience was spellbound and when the film finished we all leapt to our feet and gave Thomas a standing ovation. Peter and I were blown away. The word "AWE" kept coming to my mind.  Thomas promises to come back and do a theater tour in the fall. If he does don't miss it. It's a truly unbelievably good and inspiring multimedia experience.”

[machineheadusa]

"My Musical Necessity is..." by Carmen Rizzo, LA based Grammy Nominated Record Producer, DJ, and Recording Artist

Good friend and world roving Producer/Artist/DJ Carmen Rizzo had a lot to do with why Machine Head decided to relocated it’s studios to DTLA. His pitch on downtown was short, passionate, and very convincing (Stephen and Carmen go way back, while Carmen was engineering at legendary Westlake Studios Stephen would often be a visitor as a programmer on sessions). 

So, we decided to ask our new neighbor what gear is most important to him when it comes to making music.  It was no surprise that once again he kept his response short, passionate, and convincing. 

"Hard to say what my favorite piece of gear is at the moment.  I come from the world of the recording studio and have had my hands on so many boxes over the years.  However there are some perennials.  For recording my favorites are my Brett Averil API mic pre amps, a DBX 165a compressor and a URIE 545 Parametric EQ.  New isn't always improved and for that reason Brent Averill's devices are highly sought after and very faithful reproductions of legendary pieces of studio gear.  There are few components in the recording signal path, but their sonic signature varies greatly and can have a huge impact on the sound.  Usually the elements are microphone, microphone pre-amp and finally perhaps a compressor.  The quest for a particular sound brings many people to Brent's workshops in search of his exacting copies of legendary mic-pres and compressors, most notably Neve and API.  For keyboards, it seems to always change. I travel so much and it is all about portability!  Yes, I have a vintage Wurlitzer, but it's definitely not 'carry on' so,  at the moment  my traveling companion keyboards are the Novation Ultra or MiniNovation and NI Maschine, a software instrument made by Native Instruments."

Now, if you asked me what I would keep on a desert island, I'd have to think that one through, because I need to make music.  But, that said, if I was to be stranded on a desert island, today it’s my Mac book Pro and all the software I use to make music, i.e. Pro Tools & Abelton Live. 

Passport ... √ Thanks Carmen! 

http://carmenrizzo.com/

Brent Averill http://baeaudio.com/  Novation http://us.novationmusic.com/home?rd=1    Native http://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/maschine/production-systems/maschine/ 

[machineheadusa]

Falling In Love Again, by Roger O'Donnell of The Cure

Let me explain my love affair with the Voyager.  Early synthesizers, the size of a railway carriage, were never going to be of much use to a musician, even ones with loads of patch cords and random elements plugged together.  Fortunately, the legendary synthesizer builder Bob Moog came along and put the parts that everyone wanted to use in a single cabinet with a determined and logical flow, added a pitch and modulation wheel and turned keyboard playing on its head overnight. 

This was the Mini Moog, with which you can synthesize any sound, you can recreate any natural sound and of course sounds from around the universe. But the trouble was it never stayed in tune and with the advent of samplers in the 80’s it was redundant for many and set aside for all but a very few purists.  

Ultimately a new generation of keyboard players came along that had no idea what subtractive analogue synthesis was, the 'preset', ruled the day and Moogs, Oberheims and Prophets just gathered dust in the corner.  That was until Bob got "Moog", his name-his brand, back from legal limbo and started making an evolution of the Mini Moog’s again.  This time they stayed in tune, had a memory, and were called Voyagers.  I fell in love again, as I had in 1970, when I first saw the original.  In fact this time we got married, we didn’t just fool around!

Our first date was to write and record a song for Hans Fjellestad's film about Bob. I decided to go back to the way I used to use synths and record an entire song with just that instrument. The one song turned into two albums   ("Songs From The Silver Box" and "The Truth In Me") and many, many remixes. The sound of the Voyager became my voice and I felt at home again.  

I have two very different Voyagers in my studio, both of them hand built for me by Bob.  My Black one is a 50th Anniversary Edition, which I first played on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, I think? After my Apple Store tour (that I did in 2006) I sent it back to the factory for tuning.  They took it apart and spent about three months tweaking the circuits. Mainly they customized the touch sensitivity and made it incredibly expressive. They then put red back lighting on it. I think they had just got the ability to change the colour so they tried it out on mine.  It’s the only 50th Anniversary edition with red lights! It's my every day go to Voyager, the touch sensitivity is just amazing and very very organic and emotional.  My Powder Blue one was built specifically for me to my specifications. The custom colour is the most obvious sign but internally it's pretty much a standard Voyager.  It was one of the very last that Bob actually signed at my request before he sadly died in 2006 long before his time. 

Samplers have moved on and become pretty pictures on our computer screens, built in to our sequencers, but the Voyager sits alone, glowing and magnificent in the real world.  I describe it as my palette, it has an infinite range of colours that I can mix into tones and shapes at the flick of a switch and twist of a knob.  Every time I switch my Voyagers on, which is every time I enter my studio, I see Bob’s digital face appear on the little screen and I smile.  I couldn’t imagine playing or recording without a Voyager to hand.

Roger O'Donnell Apple Tour Demo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9zDet4qTGE&noredirect=1

--------

Learn more about Roger's work at www.rogerodonnell.com and Roger O'Donnell Discography

[machineheadusa]

The Reactable Table

by: Pablo Sanchez, Machine Head 

The first time that I saw a demo video of it, I was completely amazed. It had so many features and you could do much with it without having an extensive knowledge of technology or music. By using a tabletop tangible interface, which allows the performers to control the system by manipulating tangible objects and with their fingers, it takes the interaction that the user has with the instrument to a whole new level. 

You have so many elements to play with like synthesizers, effects, sample loops or control elements in order to create a unique and flexible composition. Reactable’s pucks represent the building blocks of electronic music, each one having a different functionality in sound generation or in effect processing, in a way deeply inspired by modular analogue synthesizers such as those developed by Bob Moog in the early 60s. 

Since 2009, the Reactable team started to develop the Reactable in different forms (tabletop, mobile apps, etc.) by creating the Reactable Systems company.

Just to show the wide variety of stuff one can do, I'll leave you with a couple of simple demo videos of how the Reactable works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h-RhyopUmc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPG-LYoW27E

Oh, and if you're looking to buy one, it's probably a smidgen out of your price range. If you want to just play on it, book a flight to Barcelona where it is housed. Which, can also be pretty expensive. But never fear, there is an app which is pretty affordable, hooray!  

IOS: https://itunes.apple.com/app/reactable-mobile/id381127666?mt=8

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.reactable

[machineheadusa]

My Cristal Baschet by: Stephen Dewey, Machine Head

There are a few interesting instruments and noise makers at Machine Head. One that may not be the most used, but it's certainly quixotic and has a degree of exotic lore about it is the 'Cristal Baschet '.  I made a short ambient tone poem to show you how it can sound. 

 There are many unique iterations of this instrument, but they are all named 'Cristal Baschet' after it's creators, Bernard and Francois Baschet, French sound instrument artists. Ours is a small one.  It's frame shoulders at about 3 feet tall and spans about 2 feet. Splaying outward from the frame are several antenna like wires and three resonating fibre glass cones. It looks like the love child of a cold war satellite dish and a set of rabbit ears. It's so odd looking, it's almost a pet yet it sounds like nothing else, giving out a yearning keaning whale like hoot. Unless you bang it, in which case it sounds like a bunch of coat hangers clanging together. An array of glass rods share the frame with the cones and wires that fan out peacock tail style. Sound emanates when wet fingers gently rub the glass rods, causing them to vibrate, think of rubbing the rim of a wine glass. The instrument is tuned by setting the glass rods at a particular distance on their long mounting screws. The cones and the radial wires then resonate and amplify the haunting sonorous tones. 

There are many Baschets out there, most of them are much bigger and more elaborate versions, some gigantic and there are a few artists who have created beautiful music with their instruments.  Ours has appeared subtly in various soundtracks we have made, it provides a nice 'x factor' tonality lurking in the background.  Film composer Cliff Martinez once borrowed it when he wrote the score for Steven Soderberg's 'Solaris'.   If you care to read more (link)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baschet_Brothers

[machineheadusa]

Wall of Doom

by: Kip Smedley, Machine Head

We are often asked to make musical compositions out of non musical sources. It's an ongoing quest to find musicality in unlikely places.

Take this wood slat wall for example. It's visually stunning structure, originally intended as a sound diffuser in our recording studio. We found that because of the unique construction of various lengths and widths of the board, attached to the wall only at the top and bottom with about a foot of air behind, it  became the worlds largest marimba.

When you strike the slats, either with your hand, a stick, or a mallet, each board resonates at a different note. The sound is very deep, and can get down to sub territory if played correctly. Which is how it became known as the Wall of Doom.

Follow up post will be featuring EXS format instrument samplers as our gift to you. Stay tuned.

[machineheadusa]

Our First Love is the Sweetest Love; Static Revenger

by: Static Revenger aka Dennis White

The first synth i ever bought was a Roland Juno 6, in 1984 (ish). I keep it on display and  plugged in to my studio to this day. It didn't have midi or preset storage.  I had this little synth pop band, and we'd spend ages trying to figure out how to make the sounds from Duran Duran and Prince records.

When we came close, we'd write the settings down on the 'synthesis memo' sheets that were included in the manual.  If you think waiting for a guitarist to tune up in between songs during a set was a pain in the arse… try waiting for a keyboardist to try to recreate a patch from scratch in between songs!  I work around the fact that it isn't sequencable by recording it straight in to abelton live, and then I can quantize the audio in Live.  Or, not. 

[machineheadusa]

A Verbal Kaleidoscope: Early Inspirations by David Bowie

Let's take it back. It's called the "Verbasizer." In this web interview, David Bowie discusses his early 90s invention that inspires his unique lyrics.

"What you end up with is a kaleidoscope of meanings, topics and nouns...all sorts of verbs just slamming into each other"

[machineheadusa]

Chasing the Perfect Guitar Tone, Part I

                         by: Chase Deso, Stenfert Charles 

I was born in the 80’s... there were a lot of different guitar sounds then, and it was confusing. Unfortunately what happens next in my story is stupidly cliché… I heard Hendrix.

But not Purple Haze or Hey Joe, I heard Jimi Hendrix Live at the Isle of Wight circa 1970, more specifically August 31st 1970, roughly 2 1/2  weeks before he died. I can trace my obsession with Fenders and Fuzz pedals back to this point. 

Now here I am 10ish years later.

  My No 1 Guitar: DeTemple Spirit Series ’52 (2005)

  The competition through the years: ‘72 Fender Telecaster Deluxe, ’59 Gretsch Duo Jet, Early 60’s Gibson ES-330, D’Pergo Aged Vintage Classic, GVCG Model T, and GVCG Model S, various Fender custom shop and vintage reissues.

  Hendrix was a Fender Stratocaster guy, so was Stevie Ray Vaughn, and so were 90% of my heroes (obvious exclusions being Danny Gatton and Roy Buchanan). So as a Fender Stratocaster guy, why is my No 1 guitar inspired by a Fender Telecaster? It’s simple, this DeTemple is without a doubt the best sounding guitar I’ve ever played. It has a huge maple neck with a hard V and a light weight one piece swamp ash body with a thin sun aged nitro finish, titanium saddles, and DeTemple’s Sweet Spot pickups.

The bridge pickup is bright and has a refined presence without being shrill and the neck pickup is thick and juicy without being veiled or tubby. The bridge in this guitar is also great for fuzz as it cuts through and complements the dark nature of most of the fuzzes I use. The neck position in this guitar doesn’t sound like a strat neck, and as most of you guitar nuts know that is one of the dream positions for strat players. It does sound round, transparent, and woody… I don't understand why, but I like it more than any strat neck I’ve played thus far and I can cop a very amazing gritty blues tone out of it.

It is something very, very special that I can play any style of music on and most importantly it loves fuzz almost as much as I do.

[machineheadusa]

Chasing the Perfect Guitar Tone, Part Il

by: Chase Deso, Stenfert Charles

My No 1 Fuzz: D.A.M. Custom Fuzz Face    

My fuzz face experiences were unfulfilling until I got my hands on a 1969 fuzz face in Cambridge, Massachusetts around 2006. It had a pair of TFK BC-108c silicon transistors in it. It took me exactly where I wanted to go. Tweak the knobs just right and it gave me a slight volume boost and based on where my guitar’s volume knob was I had grit to all out insanity on tap.

Later on I started trying the D.A.M. fuzz pedals (made by David Main in the UK) and I found a fuzz face that he made trying to mimic Jimi’s tone from the Band of Gypsies era. This fuzz became my No 1 fuzz very quickly, it sounded amazing and it was voiced in a very unique way that allowed it to cut through a mix much better than any other fuzz face I’ve used. Better yet it has sockets for the transistors and the bias resistor. So I have several transistors that I use all the time to experiment with and to change the sound of the fuzz. My go to transistors and the ones I have in the Fuzz Face in the photo is a matched Silicon pair that I got from Cesar Diaz. I’m not sure what kind they are because the labels are marked out by a sharpie… but I figure it adds to the mystique. I rehoused the circuit from the D.A.M. fuzz face into my vintage fuzz face’s enclosure (what can I say… I’m a whore for aesthetics). What does it sound like? Just listen to “Spanish Castle Magic” from Jimi Hendrix’s Isle of Wight performance. It nails it.

A final note of Jimi Hendrix’s tone: I NEVER hear people talking about this but Jimi’s UniVibe being bypassed was a huge part of his live tone. Hendrix was pummeling another tiny amplifier with fuzz before his Marshall and it adds character and texture to the guitar sound that as far as I know can’t be replicated by any UniVibe clones.

[machineheadusa]

The Legend, The Myth, The Manley.

by: Kip Smedley, Machine Head

While putting a sheen on a mix is really where this piece of kit excels, It is just as suited as a front end compressor. Push a bass guitar direct into here, it'll bring out the crunch and punch, It'll balance out a guitar amp. Kiss an acoustic guitar or vocals and it can warm up the bitterness of digital recording. And it is gorgeous on drum rooms. It also doubles as a space heater in the cool winter months.... This beast gets HOT!