I know this is a necrobump, but i have new information on the topic, so it belongs here in this thread.
Turn out that VSTi can not be bought by any means!
even the full version of SOL2 only came with the trial s-yxg50 VSTi, or so i've been told.
The full version was never actually released! Yamaha decided to discontinue the product before it was even sold to stop competing with their hardware synths.
I'm actually trying to get in touch with yamaha to try and find out how to buy it, and if it can't be bought, if they care about it being hacked. Will report back once i find out the legal status of this particular VSTi.
Ok, having got in touch with Yamaha, turns out they do still care.
These are the following legitimate ways to get XG midi with final fantasy 7. ALL OTHERs are not legit.
1) be running windows 9x. use the one you get with the game.
2) have a soundcard that comes with the synth, and uses windows 98.
3) upgrade 1 or 2 above to xp, and get the update from MS to upgrade it to XP.
4) run xp or earlier in a virtual machine and use one of the above.
5) use one of the above and record looping oggs of the xg songs to plug into steam version. (or find someone else who's done this)
6) install a soundcard with hardware XG support and drivers for your OS. good luck finding one of them now.
7)
buy a hardware xg tone generator, and hook it up to pc with a midi interface. (
this is what Yamaha wants you to do)
https://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-Mu-80-Sound-Module-Ancestor/dp/B004AP3OCM is the one you want.
Installing from the ms cab file by hand is something Yamaha doesn't really care about, because they believe xp will completely die soon enough, and yamaha is NOT bothering to ask MS to take down the files. The guy pretty much said "xp is dying we don't care, those files won't be around forever".
To be clear on number 3. you can manually install the driver on xp for the softsynth from ms, and you need no activation key. This is legal if you own a copy of s-yxg50 software. Owning ff7 non steam version DOES count for this. (s-yxg70 is simply s-yxg20 and s-yxg50 combined into one product. nice math.
) So does owning a soundcard that came with it (you will have a certificate with a key on it if this is so)
If you bought the steam version but not the disc version, you do NOT own a copy of the softsynth, and installing the update cab by hand is piracy, though yamaha doesn't really care about it, since it's limited to XP.
If you are on vista/7/8/10 you gotta buy the hardware tone generator, since you cannot buy the VSTi, since yamaha is refusing to sell it, and
never has sold it.
Sucks, but them's the breaks. If you have the disc, use XP or earlier to get working midi.
And no, grabbing a copy of the yamaha samples and using timidity++ isn't legit either, as you are violating copyright on their samples.
