What is it about?
In 2012 the Guinness World record for the "longest echo" was awarded to a disused WWII oil tank at Inchindown in Scotland. In acoustics the record would be more accurately described as the longest reverberation time. It is 72 seconds (broadband). The paper sets out the measurement method used as well as describing why the oil tank has the remarkable acoustics. At 125 Hz the reverberation time is almost two minutes.
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Why is it important?
The reverberation time is extraordinary because of the large size and bomb proof construction. This is truly remarkable and unusual place.
Perspectives
I researched places with extreme reverberation for my book Sonic Wonderland (Called The Sound Book in the US). This is a book about the most amazing sounds in the world. While I expected to break the world record because the previous value seemed eminently beatable, I never expected to surpass the record by such a large margin.
Professor Trevor J Cox
University of Salford
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A record “longest echo” within the Inchindown oil despository, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, March 2015, Acoustical Society of America (ASA),
DOI: 10.1121/1.4908218.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Gunshots in Inchindown
The recorded impulse responses used to prove the World record
Playing a saxophone in the Inchindown Oil Tank
Trevor Cox playing the echo for a Channel 5 documentary
Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting In A Room" using the Inchindown Oil Tank
Reconstruction of Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting In A Room" using the Inchindown Oil Tank
Playing the saxophone with the world's 'longest echo'
How the opening of Barry Cockcroft's Ku-Ku would sound in the Inchindown oil storage tank.
Contributors
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