Rhythmic Robot new product: Crack the riddle, win the thing!

[the professor]

This coming Friday, Rhythmic Robot will be releasing another way-cool instrument for you over at http://www.rhythmicrobot.com . (How do we do it? The answer, folks, is caffeine-loaded energy drinks, on the hour, every hour.) But this time, for a bit of fun -- and hopefully to whip up a frenzy of anticipation ahead of the release -- we're going to taunt / tantalise you with a little competition.

It's simple. Mongo has composed one of his dreaded Odes , only this time in the form of a riddle. Answer to the riddle = hefty great clue as to the name of the product we're releasing next week. And the first person to answer the riddle correctly, with a brief and persuasive rationale as to how they got to the answer, gets a copy of Whatever It Is for free, plus any other product from our lineup that they want. Tempting, huh?

The only rule is that you use the Contact Us form on our website to send your answers in. This is fairly obviously a cunning ploy to get you on our mailing list so we can let you know about further Cool New Products in the future. Hopefully that's a small price to pay. But if you really, really don't want to be on the mailing list, just say so in your entry and we promise we won't add you. Really. (But then you'll miss out...)

As entries come in I'll post them below (anonymously, don't worry) so you can laugh at what other people are thinking, and hone your answers. And if everybody gets it straight off, I'll have Mongo flogged. Good luck!


MONGO'S ODE

That ancient swift-winged messenger
The daughter of the light
Who onetime paced across the sky
And sang dispatches from on high
Her footsteps burning bright

Now joins the swiftest from below
In reckless wondrous dance
And tattoo'd patterns weaving round
Keep step with vaults of pulsing sound
Infusing their romance

The taste of this forbidden love
Is nectar to the bold
And sampling each forbidden bite
They dance away along the light
Toward their hidden gold.


Well, there you go, folks... test your mettle against Mongo's madness! Keep in touch, and good luck.

Best wishes, The Professor (and Mongo)

[the professor]

Okay, first attempts at the riddle are coming in. Here's a handful:

• My guesses are:IrisNikeMercury or Hermes... after the sex change!
• The tattoo thing makes me think Celtic... is it some kind of folk instrument?
• Nectar... nectar points, nectar card... did you sample Sainsbury's?

All I can say is...


Keep at it, folks!

[the professor]

Frank says:

Are you sampling one of the Junos, or the Roland MKS-7 SuperQuartet? My thought process is:The first verse seems to be referencing Iris. Iris was a character in Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' where she also appears with Ceres and Juno. Juno is obviously the name of a series of synths by Roland. That made me think it might be one of the Junos. However, you then go on to reference some sort of "fusion" and allude to dancing which makes me think of rhythms of some sort... This led me to the Roland MKS-7 Super Quartet as it was a combination of the Juno 106 and TR707...

The Prof says: Ooh, that's not bad. But it's not right, either

[the professor]

Tom says: Hi Rhytmic Robot crew,Awesome giveway this one. :DMy answer is Vermona DRMBECAUSEthe riddle says "tattoo'd patterns weaving round" which makes me suspect that it's a drum machine and the first part says she's the "daughter of the light" and the only "female" drum machine I can think of is Vermona DRM.So there.

The Prof says: You guys are too good at this! Mmm.... impressive. The force is strong in this one. But still wrong.

[Aloysius]

VST

[the professor]

VST

Is that your answer?! It's weirdly cryptic

PS I love your signature!

[Aloysius]

VST

Is that your answer?! It's weirdly cryptic

PS I love your signature!

noʎ ʞuɐɥʇ

Virtual Studio Technology. Should cover most eventualities. Did I win?

[the professor]

You win points for upside-down chic, but that's about it, I'm afraid!

[the professor]

Charles says: Alectrona. I choose this answer because it is an early greek mythical goddess of the sun also called a daughter of the sun which can translate to daughter of the light, not to mention that would just be a bad ass name for and instrument because it almost sounds like Electronic.My second guess would be The Pheonix because you think of The Pheonix flying and being of flames that "her" foot steps would burn bright. Then you think of her joining the swiftest below signifing the later rise of the Pheonix.

Prof says: Nice thinking. Nice logic. Nice handwriting, even. But nowhere close. Also, we're looking for the name of a real instrument that we sampled, not just something cool we made up. (That would be WAY hard.)
The one thing I will say is that a bit of Geek - sorry, Greek - mythology is definitely the place to start

[the professor]

Jason says: My guess is SELENE because her name means light. She is an ancient Greek Lunar Deity. "They dance away along the light" plus the old ARP SOLINA synth. My 2 cents

Prof says: Mmm.... nice try! Unfortunately, also wrong try. Try again! Mind you, we really should sample a Solina, cos they're neat

[the professor]

Charles says: Ok is it the Aroura step sequencer? I pick this becaus, In Roman mythology, Aurora, goddess of the dawn, renews herself every morning and flies across the sky, announcing the arrival of the sun (wikipedia)Since she is announcing the arrival of the sun that makes her a messenger. Aurora being a step sequencer puts it in the instrument category.

Prof says: This isn't bad at all! Good work on the classical mythology. But... sorry, no cigar. We want Greek, not Roman, and our gal is the "daughter of the light", not the light itself... Plus, there's more to the riddle than just the first stanza! You have to look at the second and third and put it all together to get the name of the Thing We Sampled.

[the professor]

Ed says: You sampled the persephone! daughter of Zeus and a cool synth!

Prof says: Yes a cool synth. No, not the answer

[the professor]

Charlie says: Hermes is the swift winged messenger. Eos is the daughter of the god of light. Eos is a synth, maybe im closer (with the first part) Maybe its the EOS sampled with a step sequencer added or an arpegiator. I cant figure out what Heremes has to do with it though.

Prof says: You win some, you lose some. Unfortunately this time you lose some.

[the professor]

Christian says: This must be too twisted ;)First part refers to Arce, daughter of ElectraSecond part refers to Achilles who received the wings of Arce which give him swift feetThen we've got 'footsteps burning bright', 'reckless wondrous dance', 'patterns weaving round', 'Keep step with vaults of pulsing sound' and 'They dance away along the light'Finally, 'Toward their hidden gold'Arce delivers messages traveling on a rainbow which ends in a hidden pot of gold. Arcade is derived from Arce.Achilles receives his fast feet when Arce's wings are joined to them. Said feet are handy for reckless, wondrous dancing along the light of patterns weaving round pulsing sound.Dance Dance Revolution is an arcade game where the object is to dance on flashing lights to the pulsing sound.One of the editions of Dance Dance Revolution is SuperNova.The obvious answer is Novation's SuperNova.~

Prof says: NOW we're talking! I think this is the first stab at an answer that tries to tie all of the riddle together. Almost everyone else has concentrated on just the first stanza. And it's not at all too twisted: Mongo's mind IS twisted, so you guys need to get plenty weird to follow his train of thought down the dark tunnel of his warped subconscious.

Well... it's not right, sorry. But you're really thinking in the right way. In fact, you've come perilously close to nailing several details, and we think that's cool enough that you're due a little encouragement. So let's take a look at what you're suggesting:

• The first stanza refers to Arce, daughter of Electra
• The hidden gold refers to a rainbow
• The "swiftest from below" refers to Achilles

One of these suggestions is spot on. One of these suggestions is completely wrong. And one of these suggestions is half right...

I should also mention that some of the earlier entries, though they didn't nail the whole riddle, may have touched on details that were correct. Might be worth checking them over again for that reason

Keep 'em coming, folks!

[the professor]

Okay, folks, drum-roll please... WE HAVE A WINNER! Many congratulations to Tomislav, who's nailed it

All it took was meticulous detective work and a careful reading of Mongo's rant to snag young Tom a copy of our Unreleased Product plus whatever else he wants from the website.

But... there's still four days to go till Friday, and it seems a shame to ditch this silliness just because someone's won. So I'm now EXTENDING THE COMPETITION. The next three people to solve the riddle will receive runners-up prizes of The Unreleased Product (just not the free choice of any other product as well; Tom's the only one to get that )

So there's still everything to play for. And it's been proved that Mongo's Madness can be penetrated. Go for it, folks...