The Trons are a
New Zealand self-playing
robot band created by the musician Greg Locke. The band consists of four robots, created from scratch using a variety of spare parts and electronic equipment, and are based in
Hamilton. The band is named for the city's nickname, "The Tron".
History
During the 1990s,
while a member of the New Zealand musical duo ''The Emersons'', Greg Locke toyed with the concept of developing a robotic drummer. This concept eventually grew into the idea of creating an entire band of robots.
The four robots took about nine months to build and were created from electronic components of decommissioned photocopy-card vending machines (which formed part of Locke's daytime career),
various scavenged parts and some advanced equipment. The construction of the band was assisted with a
grant by the Hamilton Community Arts Council.
About
The band is managed by its creator, Greg Locke, a New Zealand musician and
mechanical engineer who has played in garage bands including The Hollow Grinders.
The band contains no human members, consisting only of four robots
named ''Ham'', ''Wiggy'', ''Swamp'' and ''Fifi''.
''Ham'' plays the
rhythm guitar
In music performances, rhythm guitar is a technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., drum kit, bass guitar ...
and does the
vocal
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production i ...
s.
The vocals are produced through bits of
tape loop created on an old
tape machine and
looped
''Looped'' is a play by Matthew Lombardo about an event surrounding actress Tallulah Bankhead. It had a Broadway run in 2010, after two previous productions in 2008 and 2009, all three of them featuring Valerie Harper.
Plot
Based on a real even ...
.
''Wiggy'' plays
lead guitar which is single-string. It is only possible for the robots to play four
chord
Chord may refer to:
* Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously
** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning
* Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve
* Chord ( ...
s.
''Swamp'' performs on the drums, using a pie-plate as a
snare. ''Swamp'' was written several times on the drum set that Locke purchased for this robot (he guesses that it must have been the name of the band who had used it), thus the robot's name.
''Fifi'' plays the
keyboard, using only one "hand". She originally played
bass
Bass or Basses may refer to:
Fish
* Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species
Music
* Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range:
** Bass (instrument), including:
** Acoustic bass gui ...
but performed poorly at it.
The robots are made from a combination of scrap parts and more complex equipment and are controlled via a computer using a "top-secret" software package.
The use of "flimsy material" makes the robots' actions similar to that of a human to create human-like music.
Despite being robots, the members of the Trons are often treated as human by fans
to the point where ''Swamp'' has received date requests. Locke explains this tendency to treat them as human arises from the "human element" required to create music.
Critical reputation
The Trons' first dip into stardom came from their
YouTube video, which received over 80,000 hits in two days, going on to amass almost a million hits in only a few months. They have received mostly positive critical acclaim, being described as "pure genius" and as being better than
Grammy Award-winning British band
Coldplay.
References
External links
*
Waikato robot band an internet hit*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trons, The
New Zealand indie rock groups
Musical groups established in 2008
Robot musicians
Culture in Hamilton, New Zealand
Robots of New Zealand
2000s robots
Individual robots