Their synth programmer, Hideki Matsutake, once had the official MIDI & synth patch files of YMO & Logic System (Matsutake's YMO-inspired music project) available for purchase online in the noughties. These files would be invaluable for learning music production & songwriting, and for doing 100% accurate covers of YMO's music.
Long-story short, I haven't been able to find them yet, but here's the details of my search so far:
I first learned of these files from this obscure online entry on Matsutake.
http://nickkent.net/jem/ls.html
The author of the write-up says:
This was the first I had heard of them, so I e-mailed the author about it, and he got back to me & said:I saw a number of authorized commercial MIDI files [that Hideki Matsutake] released in 2000 of YMO's original songs, many of which he surely had a hand in arranging originally 20 years ago.
I pestered him about if he still had those YMO files that he had his friend buy & send him/upload, but he never got back to me in the end. From all of what I've looked, there's no trace of them available for purchase or download *anywhere* on the Internet - not even on YMO or Matsutake's current site.I remember [those files], am near certain at the time there was no way to pay for them that someone overseas would have access to, so you would have needed a friend in Japan to get them…
I did that for his YMO midi file collection many years ago. I’d have to study details to remember, I think I paid a friend $20 or something to but them online. Not sure if that was on his website. They were pretty interesting files, lots of controller info as I recall. I think I heard they were boxed too, but that wasn’t cheap, like $50 though I only half remember.
I remember I passed on the Hosono sample CD. It was like $200 retail and I think the tease is he made an exclusive song with it that you got as a demo, like 20 years ago or whenever sample CDs were a thing
Regarding his own music on his website. I remember one was free. Have you found it anywhere. If wayback machine has the file name or at least song name I might have archived the free one.
Don’t think there is any midi file market any more?
After some deep digging, I was able to confirm their existence through an archived version of Matsutake's website (whose homepage auto-downloads a free MIDI, as the author alluded to in his e-mail).
https://web.archive.org/web/20060206165 ... jp/~logic/
The homepage has a link to a purchase page which lists the sought-after MIDI & patch files for both Logic System (Matsutake's YMO-inspired project) & YMO, though clicking on the credit card purchase option for any of the files redirects to an unarchived page with no chance of attaining them.
https://web.archive.org/web/20071025110 ... d%a8%bc%f9
I tried to get in touch with Matsutake's team more than a few times for info on if the files were still available anywhere, or if they could send. After my fourth or fifth attempt at getting in contact, I got an e-mail back saying that Matsutake himself stated that they weren't available anymore.
https://i.imgur.com/bNRjsQK.png
That's where I've been stuck. I'd imagine that I'd have much more luck finding the files if I could explore the Japanese side of the Internet, especially considering that they could apparently only be purchased through Japanese Internet, but I don't speak the language so it's been essentially impossible to do so effectively.
If anyone else is willing to help investigate or has any more info, please let me know!
Thank you.
