Roland MSQ-700 Digital Keyboard Recorder
Contributed by Grayson Lang on Oct 19th, 2024. Artwork published in
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Source: www.polynominal.com License: All Rights Reserved.
Front panel of the Roland MSQ-700, with device number and description set in Corporate Image
The MSQ-700 Digital Keyboard Recorder was released in 1984. It was an 8 track sequencer that could record to memory as well as a tape I/O interface and transport controls to load and save performance data. It was one of the first Roland products to feature MIDI and has case styling similar to the TR-909 which was released the prior year. The device also supported Roland’s proprietary data exchange format Digital Control Bus (DCB), which at the time was in the process of being phased out in favor of the more flexible and open MIDI standard.
The device model number and description are set in Corporate Image. Additional text is set in Helvetica
2 Comments on “Roland MSQ-700 Digital Keyboard Recorder”
Thanks for expanding the range of Roland devices covered on Fonts In Use, Grayson!
It’s interesting to see that the MSQ-700 doesn’t use Earth as the other ones, but a stylistically similar typeface.
Corporate Image was released in 1971 by Alphabet Innovations, together with Corporate, which has closed counters and a lowercase. In 1974, Quad Typographers showed Limited (≈ Corporate) and Limited View (≈ Corporate Image). These copies are distinguished by several small differences. Judging from the narrow B and the larger counter in A, the font used here actually is Limited View, not Corporate Image. However, the two are so similar that we keep them on a single page.
In a previous post about the Game Boy, Patrick pointed out the tell-tale glyphs and reckoned that Nintendo – from Japan, like Roland – used Limited rather than Corporate for all their products.