[whispering] I'm inside one of the
Inchindown oil tanks, an old oil storage facility
in Inverness, in Scotland. This tank is 237 metres long
and it's not meant for humans. When it was in use by the Royal Navy all this colossal space
would have been filled with fuel oil. With these oil tanks, the Royal Navy
accidentally created the greatest reverberation chamber
in the world. Flat surfaces
enclosed by solid rock, and a chamber big enough that
sound takes a whole second or more to go off the far w
all
and bounce back. But still narrow enough
that you get lots of reverberation from all the close surfaces as well. - The construction started in 1938 and it carried on right through
the beginning of the war up to around about 1943. The Admiralty had decided that they
required bomb-proof storage for their oil. So they set about building a number
of oil tanks across Britain. And this, Inchindown, is one of them. The construction required
six tanks to be built. The entire complex could easily con
tain
100,000 tonnes of fuel but one single Royal Navy battleship
can drink 5,000 tonnes. So it could go very, very quickly. It is a truly amazing chamber of sound, a cathedral of oil and
a cathedral of sound. - So now I'm going to shut up for a bit. Preston here is going to
fire a starting pistol, a very, very loud bang. On the screen is a visual
display of that sound. Different frequencies will reverberate
for different amounts of time so you will see that and hear that. And as it gets quieter
we will turn up the level on the microphone so it's
easier for you to hear. Right, everyone ready? Thank you to the Bannerman Group
for letting us into the tunnels, to Allan, Alan and Preston
for helping with everything here, to Matt Gray who is behind the camera and who's had some musical
experiences over on his channel. Go for it. Aagh! That is terrifying.
Comments
If you want some more ridiculous noises, do check out Matt’s video — the link’s in the description and the end card!
This is what it sounds like when you drop something downstairs at 3 in the morning.
The only place in the world where if you fart, the sound stays longer than the smell.
1:53 me at 3 am opening the cake container in the kitchen.
the text that appears during the gunshot is a really nice touch
It’s all fun and games until you hear a different voice echo back
The fact that no one yelled “echo!” In the chamber is disappointing.
"...the tank was professionally cleaned in the 90s but old oil still seeps out of the wall sometimes..." That honestly sounds kind of creepy and unsettling xD. At the very least it certainly demonstrates just how insanely difficult it is to clean oil
For a video about sound, it was a very deaf friendly one. From good captions, to the visual representation of sound this was really interesting. Thanks for making it accessable ^^
The freaky thing for me was sliding through the pipe.
0:06 don’t mind me just putting the pizza in the oven
The professionalism of these guys is admirable, how one of them didn't try and squeeze a massive fart out is very respectful
As someone who's claustrophobic, this video was a master class in horror.
Have a concert down there and everyone will ascend into the afterlife.
Me: sneezes Echo: bless you
Imagine playing the THX sound at full volume in there 😂😂
Imagine hearing Halo Theme there... I would honestly just die right there and you’ll see my body float to heaven elegantly
0:04, every claustrophobic person's nightmare.
"check your volume, we're returning to normal speech" more channels need to do that if there's a quiet bit in their videos
I learned about this in my intro to audio recording and mixing class, alongside the world's quietest room (anechoic chamber); It's amazing when you start to explore the extremes.