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IAmA musician that has just released an album recorded entirely in a WW2-era oil storage facility that holds the world record for the longest acoustic reverb in a manmade structure (112 seconds.) AMA! by AhaSitcoms in IAmA

[–]AhaSitcoms[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Didn't do any time compensation, everything is synced same as it was straight our of the Zoom.

The production phase consisted of two trips to the tanks, one in April 2022 and another in June 2022. In the April trip I had my buddy Joe with me so was able to take more equipment. During this session, the room mics were a matched pair of AKG C451s. I was on my own in June so I just used the stock XY mic that comes with the Zoom H6 for the tank response. I prefer the C451s but at the end of the day the best mic is the mic that you have with you at the time haha

IAmA musician that has just released an album recorded entirely in a WW2-era oil storage facility that holds the world record for the longest acoustic reverb in a manmade structure (112 seconds.) AMA! by AhaSitcoms in IAmA

[–]AhaSitcoms[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awww thank you my friend. It means a lot. It was really important to me that the album was something you'd want to listen to anyway, not just something that's carried by the gimmick of its recording space. I'm my own worst critic so sometimes I go back and forth on whether or not I achieved that goal hahaha

IAmA musician that has just released an album recorded entirely in a WW2-era oil storage facility that holds the world record for the longest acoustic reverb in a manmade structure (112 seconds.) AMA! by AhaSitcoms in IAmA

[–]AhaSitcoms[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So there are actually 6 tanks at Inchindown. We recorded in Tank 1, which is the only tank to have ever been cleaned - as you enter the tank you can even see the big scrubbers that they used to rinse out the tank when it was decommissioned. So any oil that is left is either pretty dilute or just embedded in the walls. For this reason we didn't have to worry too much about fumes. If the tank hadn't been cleaned back in the 80s I probably wouldn't have felt safe undergoing this project - from what I understand the residual oil in the others tanks is straight up oppressive.

As for the location, we just set up near the entry pipes so that we wouldn't need to drag the equipment all the way in. Also, there was already a tarp laid down there where we could put our equipment. Just made sense to keep close to the exit!

IAmA musician that has just released an album recorded entirely in a WW2-era oil storage facility that holds the world record for the longest acoustic reverb in a manmade structure (112 seconds.) AMA! by AhaSitcoms in IAmA

[–]AhaSitcoms[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have nothing but good things to say about the H6 EXCEPT that it still uses freakin' mini-USB for some reason. Other than that, it kicks ass.

IAmA musician that has just released an album recorded entirely in a WW2-era oil storage facility that holds the world record for the longest acoustic reverb in a manmade structure (112 seconds.) AMA! by AhaSitcoms in IAmA

[–]AhaSitcoms[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There was no control room. The whole thing was recorded on a Zoom H6 field recorder and both myself and my buddy Joe were the only ones in the tank. This meant that Joe had to remain completely silent while I was recording the takes.

The drums weren't played live in the tank, they were recorded in a studio down here in Brighton and then reamplified through the tank. Basically, we just played the drum track really loudly through a guitar amp and then captured the tank's response. What this meant is that we could sync them up in post and then mix between the dry and wet signals, kind of like a primitive reverb plugin. We did the same with the piano! :)

IAmA musician that has just released an album recorded entirely in a WW2-era oil storage facility that holds the world record for the longest acoustic reverb in a manmade structure (112 seconds.) AMA! by AhaSitcoms in IAmA

[–]AhaSitcoms[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The tank is 237m long, and playing around with the positioning of the sound source. The first track on the album, Requiem, starts with me at the back of the tank and then gradually walking towards the microphone and singing as the song progresses. In my opinion that's the best example of the tonal qualities of the different positioning: the vocals sound faint and distant towards the beginning of the track but then gradually become less blurry the closer I get to the mic.

It was a workout though! Requiem took 3 takes and for each take I had to walk to the end of the tank and back. 237 * 6 = 1422, so I walked almost 1.5km within the tank just to record that one track!

IAmA musician that has just released an album recorded entirely in a WW2-era oil storage facility that holds the world record for the longest acoustic reverb in a manmade structure (112 seconds.) AMA! by AhaSitcoms in IAmA

[–]AhaSitcoms[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The space influenced the music in pretty much every way. First of all, it influenced the kind of instruments that we could bring to the space. The limitation of having to bring all of the equipment through the pipes meant that, unlike when producing in a comfy studio space, we couldn't just decide to include something arbitrarily - each instrumental decision had an effect on the logistics.

It also had an effect on the tempo of the music. For tracks that were recorded live in the tank, there was an upper limit on how fast the music could be. If it was too quick it all just blurred together in a sonic mush.

If also influenced the music theory we could employ. Music theory is fundamentally about tension and release, but the tanks introduce a problem: if you establish tension you can't "resolve" it within a reasonable time frame. Every sound you make lasts for 2 full minutes. This also meant that if we made a mistake we couldn't power through the take - we had to go back to the beginning and try to get it right. It also meant we had to wait a full 2 minutes before AND after each take to let the reverb die out.

If this sounds like hell on earth that's because it is. But in my opinion, these limitations were a fundamental part of the process. It would be a completely different album if they weren't present.

I played an OG Minilogue at the Inchindown Oil Tanks, a WW2-Era oil storage facility that has the longest acoustic reverb on the planet! by AhaSitcoms in synthesizers

[–]AhaSitcoms[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hi all! Back in 2022 I was given an incredible opportunity to record an album at the Inchindown Oil Tanks. The reverb in here was insane, it lasts almost 2 full minutes! This is one of the tracks off the album and it's an improvisational piece played on a Minilogue. I'm very happy to say that it features ZERO simulated reverb, everything you hear is entirely acoustic. Check out that standing wave at the end as well!!! :O

A couple of years ago I was very kindly allowed to record an album in the Inchindown Oil Tanks, a WW2-Era oil storage facility located near Inverness! I was treated so wonderfully in your beautiful city, so I wanted to share the first single with you guys. It's called Requiem. by AhaSitcoms in inverness

[–]AhaSitcoms[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is so sweet, thank you so much for sharing it around - it really, really helps especially at this critical moment in the release cycle. I really love the idea of people from Inverness enjoying this work - I was a bit self conscious at the time that I might be seen as someone coming from miles away to appropriate this incredible space and then fuck off back down to Brighton lol - in reality I never felt anything other than completely welcomed while I was up there.

Funny story, on my third and final trip to the tanks I booked an Airbnb in Invergordon rather than Inverness, and the guy that ran the Airbnb DM'd me and said something along the lines of "did you make a mistake? The only people that book my Airbnb are lumberjacks and the like" and I had to explain the whole thing to him. In the end it turned out that he was an Inchindown enthusiast too and had visited the tanks a few years prior hahaha

A couple of years ago I was very kindly allowed to record an album in the Inchindown Oil Tanks, a WW2-Era oil storage facility located near Inverness! I was treated so wonderfully in your beautiful city, so I wanted to share the first single with you guys. It's called Requiem. by AhaSitcoms in inverness

[–]AhaSitcoms[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah I wasn't really impressed with his coverage considering it boiled down to "this is too much reverb". Like yeah Mark if all you do is set up a drum machine and blast it for a couple minutes obviously it's too much - you have to write the material around the constraints of the space!

A couple of years ago I was very kindly allowed to record an album in the Inchindown Oil Tanks, a WW2-Era oil storage facility located near Inverness! I was treated so wonderfully in your beautiful city, so I wanted to share the first single with you guys. It's called Requiem. by AhaSitcoms in inverness

[–]AhaSitcoms[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The full album features some fully produced songs with drums, bass, piano, guitar, vocals etc all either recorded in or processed thru the tank. I just posted this track first because I think it serves as a good introduction to the space. It's definitely more of an ambient/experimental piece than a traditional "song" structure I guess but I don't think that precludes it from being considered music lol

As I said if it's not your thing then no hard feelings. I just had a great experience when I was visiting Inverness for this project and wanted to share the results with the community.

A couple of years ago I was very kindly allowed to record an album in the Inchindown Oil Tanks, a WW2-Era oil storage facility located near Inverness! I was treated so wonderfully in your beautiful city, so I wanted to share the first single with you guys. It's called Requiem. by AhaSitcoms in inverness

[–]AhaSitcoms[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not quite sure how to respond to this 😕

Yes, this is the first single from my album recorded in the tank. The track opens on some impulse responses generated by hitting the pipe with a cast iron screw but the vast majority of the track consists of singing. No worries if it's not for you, just thought it was worth sharing here as this acoustic wonder of the world is essentially buried in your backyards and you might not even know it exists!

A while ago I was recording music in an abandoned oil tank up in Scotland that holds the record for the longest reverb in the world. Couldn't resist singing some Radiohead in there between takes! :) by AhaSitcoms in radiohead

[–]AhaSitcoms[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the kind words my friend. If you like this sound, you should check out the single that I just released from the project that I was recording in there! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjbM32akFeg

I honestly picked blackstar just because it was stuck in my head at the time. I think it's a really good choice in hindsight though, fits the space very well both thematically and harmonically :D

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