Wikipedia said: Dōjin music (同人音楽), also called otokei dōjin (音系同人) in Japan, is a sub-category of dōjin activity. Dōjin are basically non-official self-published Japanese works which can be based on official products or completely original creations. Such products are sold online on specialized sites, on the author's own sites and in conventions such as the very popular Comic Markets.
Dōjin music isn't a musical genre in itself but is indicative of a particular publishing way, like the term "indie" would be.
Dōjin music consists very often of video game music fan arrangements. Much original music is also created, be it music for dōjin games or simply mainstream music such as pop, rock, techno or trance.
By nature, dōjin music is most often reduced to synthetic digital productions which allow for self-production at low costs, as opposed to studio mastering live instruments require. As much as full live instrumentations are rare though, it is pretty common to have one live instrument such as a guitar backed up by synthetic orchestrations.
Dōjin music artists can be solo or band projects. It is very common for members of different groups to collaborate on an album. Some projects, such as Woodsoft, are collaborations of several artists contributing to a given theme for each of their album releases.
Each members of a group usually have their individual site on which they release their personal works free to download and possibly give updates about their involvement in upcoming albums. Some artists actually never release albums and keep their artistic activity to this free-for-all form. The most productive groups usually release 2 albums a year which are released in summer and winter editions of the Comic Markets conventions and sold for an average of 1000 yen for full length ones. The most involved and popular artists are usually featured on their own group albums but also make guest appearance on other groups' CDs.
The albums themselves benefit of various treatment depending on groups, from plain CD-R to fully printed packaging including the CD, with quality often similar to official products.
Aside from the Comic Market, events held in Japan for dōjin music include the biannual "M3" and the "Hakurei Shrine Reitaisai" (limited to Touhou Project related music).
