Doujin Music and DTM

Before we delve deeper into what sort of music doujin denpa was, we should have a clearer image of how doujin music was in the first place. Doujin music was almost completely electronic at first, and a product of a rising amateur genere called DTM - "Desktop Music". The term generally referred to any music played by the combination of a personal computer and synthesizer. Our journey begins in the early 80's.

The year is 1983, and the Japanese MIDI protocol is developed in order to standardize communication between computers and synthesizers as to ease the work of electronic musicians. Before then, Japanese musicians would depend on programming languages for music such as MML, used in BASIC computers, or methods such as FM synthesis - a realm only accessible to people already well-versed in computers and electronics to begin with. The introduction of MIDI then made it possible for amateur musicians to create electronic music of their own, but it wasn't particularly quick to adapt. It took until 1991, when the General MIDI was adopted, for it to become popular. For example, amateur musician Ryoichi Kaku (加来量一) started using FM synthesis in 1986, when he was 14 years old, and only adapted MIDI in 1993. With the rising popularity of the MIDI standard, Japanese came to see music produced with MIDI as its own distinct genre. MIDI music could not reliably be used to share music with one another at the time, mainly due to the different reproduction of sound on each set of computer and synthesizer. Transferring MIDI data over the wire was also slow and unreliable, so people instead contacted one another through BBS to send floppy drives with the MIDI data over the mail. MIDI music could not yet be enjoyed by people other than the composers themselves and their immediate contacts.

The 1990 compilation album MCMLXC, mentioned in the previous post, was the first recorded instance of a pressed CD release of doujin music - that is, DTM made by amateur musicians. Such musicians joined together with several game composers to form the fleeting circle SYNERGY MUSIC NETWORK. The expense of CD pressing prompted artists to collect capital together and ask for financial support from friends and associates to see production through. SYNERGY released MCMLXC in either Summer Comiket 38 or Winter Comiket 39, when exactly is unfortunately still unknown, until the C38 or C39 catalogs are looked out to rule out a date. Their undoubtedly work left a mark, and by the next several years, more musicians would follow in their footsteps and gather into the first major doujin circles:

• In 1991, Shinji Hosoe (細江慎治), who participated in MCMLXC, and Takayuki Aihara (相原隆行), both Namco game composers, teamed up to form label TROUBADOUR RECORD, with their first album Be filled with feeling released in December of the next year. 
• In 1993, amateur musicians of the grassroots BBS MYU-NET, led by Keiji Itsukashi (嚴樫圭司) teamed up to form techno label MYU-RECORDINGS, with their first album INDIVIDUAL released in December of the same year. 
• In 1994, amateur musicians of BBS ASCII-NET's mplayers sig teamed up to form mplayers RECORD, with their first album junk.test released as tape in December of the same year.
• In 1995, MIDI musicians of Tokyo-BBS teamed up to form @MIDI's people Record, with their first album @MIDI's mind released in August of the same year.
• In 1996,  amateur musicians led by Daichi Nagao (永尾大地) teamed up to form anime theme song arrangement circle Whoopee!records, with their first album MEGUaMIx released in March of the same year. It was an arrangement album of Megumi Hayashibara (林原めぐみ) songs, and included a "doku-denpa" mix.

There were other, smaller doujin music circles at the time, as well.

• Circle ACTIVE GAMERS released FDs containing sound data as early as 1990.
• In 1994, doujinshi circle KIKU RETURNS released a music CD accompanying a story contained within the booklet.
• In 1995, Magome Tonshi (戸越まごめ) under alias STB formed personal circle Onpo Shinbusha (音波新聞社), "Soundwave News Agency", which would the following year be renamed into STB-lab.
• Units within TROUBADOUR RECORD and MYU-RECORDINGS released music under their own name, utilizing the labels as release platforms. 
• Circle Parsec Sound Group, which released two albums: P・S・G MusicCollection vol.1 in 1992 and P・S・G MusicCollection vol.2 in 1994.
• Circle MLA, which released two albums: OLIO in 1994 and OLIO2 in 1995. 

Unfortunately, the doujin music works of  the 1990s are almost all limited to secondhand sale, and besides TROUBADOUR albums, are in extremely low availability. This means that information about a particular album is hard to come by, unless the album owner shares knowledge of it.

Symbol of MYU-RECORDINGS

Generally speaking, almost all music released by these circles was a form of DTM, amended at times by vocals. More often than not, albums included songs of a wide variety of genres, though retaining a certain spirit for each label and circle.