It's just The Tank to us....

June 24, 2016 5:32 PM

You might call it the "small town struggle." The problem tiny communities have with getting noticed. The Tank is an acoustical marvel, a senses-altering experience found nowhere else on earth. A 60′ tall, 30′ across rusted steel water tank – never used – was discovered in Colorado by sound artist and sonic thinker ​Bruce Odland in 1976.

Never used for its intended purpose, it has found a new purpose as a concert hall. Friends of the Tank, a group of musicians and music lovers who are entranced by the ethereal, haunting music and effects the Tank creates, like to say it's one of the greatest concert halls in existence. Incredible effects, soaring vocals and raucous cacophony result when anyone crawls through the eighteen-inch-wide porthole and starts experimenting with any kind of sound, as even the smallest noise will bounce around for half a minute or more.

Any noise made in the Tank reverberates repeatedly, making even mediocre singing heavenly (and presumably, rude noises even more hilarious and vuvuzelas even more annoying). You have to hear it to believe it.

posted by shockingbluamp (25 comments total)

Super groovy.
posted by vrakatar at 6:40 PM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Reverb, like distortion pedals, can certainly be used to fantastic effect; but they can also be used to cover a multitude of sins.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:44 PM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

If the sins are covered, does it matter that they exist? Or DO THEY EVEN EXIST?
posted by Lyme Drop at 7:09 PM on June 24, 2016 [6 favorites]

I've built grain bins. Similar acoustic effects. The bigger ones do sound better.

Good for them, if they can make it profitable.

But the reverb gets really old, really fast.
posted by yesster at 7:15 PM on June 24, 2016

The sound in that example video really is otherworldly.

I kind of wonder about the ventilation though if you have more than a couple of people in there.
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:25 PM on June 24, 2016

Some Irish feller name of "The Hedge" made a fair bit of money doing that. Think he was the guitar one of the band.

Of course, bein the showbiz types and all, they dressed up their tank like a lemon. No laws agin' it I guess.
posted by petebest at 8:02 PM on June 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

There are a bunch of similar places. I've played in ones in WA and LA. Super long natural reverb, dangerous amounts of scary dust. Awesome graffiti (at one point, the aperture to the LA tank had "SEX SPOT" scrawled above it).
posted by Joseph Gurl at 9:02 PM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Joseph Gurl: "dangerous amounts of scary dust"

They've painted the inside; shouldn't be more dust than the average office (less really, no 24x7 HVAC).

However for anyone thinking about attempting this in a guerrilla manner somewhere be aware that people have died from lack of oxygen where their was insufficient ventilation and unlined tanks. When a confined space like a tank starts rusting the rusting action can pull all the oxygen out of the tank. And your nose can't tell you, your first clue there isn't any oxygen is when you pass out. That is on top of all the displacement or hazardous contents that can also be deadly.

Grain silos can be especially dangerous because a layer of grain on the floor plus water from the floor or leaks can cause the plant matter to decompose sucking out oxygen and filling the space with methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide.

Bringer Tom: "I kind of wonder about the ventilation though if you have more than a couple of people in there."

They've cut a fan hole in the roof and a larger entry door. You only need 20 CFM, a bathroom fan's nominal capacity is 80-230 CFM. A 15" fan can move a couple thousand CFM.
posted by Mitheral at 9:29 PM on June 24, 2016 [9 favorites]

I found a stairwell on the Cal campus that is like that, though probably not quite so dramatic. It's a stairwell in Davis Hall, on the east side of the building, facing Cory Hall and the Hearst Mining Building. The stairwell is detached from the building, just a tall, square concrete tube.

(You'll probably need a card key to get in, and it's very low traffic, so you usually can't just follow someone.)
posted by ryanrs at 9:36 PM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I had the once-in-a-lifetime experience of visiting the Peter Zumthor designed spa in Vals, Switzerland. It had this one space that felt like the bottom of an elevator shaft. Water about mid-chest height. Square and brick lined with a narrow rectangular opening for access. If you kept your mouth just above the waterline and hummed it would echo and reverb in a very satisfying way. I really enjoyed floating on my back through the narrow passageway and gently humming. That kind of reverb is like getting your back scratched or squishing your toes in warm sand.
posted by amanda at 9:58 PM on June 24, 2016 [11 favorites]

our lady of snows
posted by hortense at 10:53 PM on June 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

O I have been in there. It's sensual in a way that's hard to explain.

I never worried about the air though probably because it is big and had a hole on the top. That and all the booze I had consumed.
posted by OhSusannah at 11:01 PM on June 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

but they can also be used to cover a multitude of sins.

Friend, music is made of sin. Ain't no reverbulation gonna cover that up.
posted by rhizome at 11:08 PM on June 24, 2016 [13 favorites]

I have made noises in a Titan missile base's generator vault, which was inconceivably big and reverberated very pleasantly.
posted by clew at 11:27 PM on June 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've also had the pleasure of a visit to Therme Vals and know exactly what you're talking about. That place is breathtaking.

Less so was an abandoned train tunnel near Charlottesville that I explored one Spring. There were ice stalactites melting and dripping into their own meltwater and the sound of very slow indoor rain was enveloping in the darkness.

I'd love to hear the Tank.
posted by a halcyon day at 12:01 AM on June 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

I found a photo of the Davis Hall stairwell. The central clear space is large enough for the acoustics to work, and it's so tall that you can snap your fingers and hear the individual echoes travel up and down. I think the stairs add some richness to the reverb that would not be there if it was just a straight tube. All surfaces are concrete, so there is very little damping.
posted by ryanrs at 12:41 AM on June 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

>They've painted the inside; shouldn't be more dust than the average office (less really, no 24x7 HVAC).

Of course. I was referring to the "guerrilla" trumpet playing I've done in other tanks.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 1:13 AM on June 25, 2016

I haven't touched weed in decades, but I might make an exception for a hippy reverb concert in a metal tank.

It's great that the town is being supportive, and I hope it continues and grows. The way they are describing the tank reminds me of some of the descriptions of land art that I've read, and I'd like to visit for that reason.
posted by Dip Flash at 3:51 AM on June 25, 2016

With the paint job and the fan and the fact that the Tank has never been used as an actual tank to hold product, the Rangley tank is probably one of the safest places in the world to play with this phenomenon then.

I would be very leery of entering any tank that had ever held product, for reasons mentioned above. The safety precautions used by professionals for confined space entry sound insane until you consider the number of people who have dropped dead in tanks that turned out to be full of toxic fumes or deoxygenated air. Basically you are not allowed into the confined space until sniff tests have been done of the air inside to rule out the worst of the nasties, and there must be a "hole watch" person outside of the space in communication with you at all times. And if the hole watch loses communication he is not allowed to try to rescue you, even if you are only a few feet away and visibly passed out. He is supposed to call the rescue team who will have self-contained breathing systems, climbing and lifting gear, and so on.
posted by Bringer Tom at 5:43 AM on June 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Singing inside the Great Pyramid. by Paul Horn.
posted by Sebmojo at 6:14 AM on June 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

But the reverb gets really old, really fast.

Reverb gets old unless you think of it and use it as a kind of distortion.
posted by signal at 6:48 AM on June 25, 2016

Last summer in Far Rockaway I came across a metal pipe laid out on the beach in preparation for pumping dredged offshore sand slurry down the shoreline after super-storm Sandy.

The pipe was straight, 3 feet high, and about 1/4 mile long. When you yell a sentence into the open end, you get the same message returned to you quite some time later, but both the pitch and the length of the message coming back was changed. So it wasn't an echo, it was as if creatures in there were mimicking you. There were several repetitions coming back, some higher and faster, some lower and slower.

I didn't get a chance to record that before they closed it up. I'll be sure to do so the next time I come across a straight, 3 foot high, quarter mile long metal tube.
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:23 AM on June 25, 2016 [14 favorites]

I went to a church service once at the Duomo in Florence. The droning chant-y parts of the mass (done by the priest) created the most amazing effect as the sound reverberated in the soaring transept and crossing.
posted by stopgap at 6:33 PM on June 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Reverb gets old unless you think of it and use it as a kind of distortion.

Even then.

(alternately: Distortion gets old really fast)
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:21 PM on June 25, 2016

In 2011 MeFi favourites Kronos Quartet played in the Hamilton Mausoleum in Scotland, a 19th century tomb with one of the longest echoes in the world. There's some footage on YouTube
posted by Jakey at 10:52 AM on June 26, 2016