I see some people selling doujin albums?  Where do these people buy them in the first place?

Usually the doujin groups that create them only sell them within Japan.

There are conventions held yearly where doujin artists get together and peddle their wares.

I've found that seller champ_des_pins on ebay is a great source for doujin albums.  I don't know how to get them at wholesale prices. 

I'm sure others have more information. 

Oh, I'm not looking to buy them at wholesale prices.  I'm just looking to find someone who sells them.  Thanks for listing champ.  I'll go take a look.

There are plenty of Dojin albums for sale on Yahoo Japan Auctions, which is another location where a lot of them are bought and sold.  If you wanted to purchase from the original artist, you'd probably have to check out the dojin circles' websites, since a lot of them do sell directly (not just at big conventions like Comic Market.)  I don't imagine many of them are geared for doing business internationally though.

champs is a great source, but he has a nasty habit of listing some albums at outrageous prices (normally $99), which kinda pisses me off because it's really taking advantage of the unavailability of the albums outside Japan. Usually though, he lists with $15-$25 BIN's, which is much more fair (the price tags on doujin albums is usually around 1000-1500 yen, although some of the more popular ones like Mintjam charge 2000 sometimes).

I don't really get why the sellers discourage international sales. It doesn't make sense...I would think artists that are just starting out would want to expand their audience as much as possible. Is it really that hard to accept payments through paypal (which converts currency on the fly) and write a foreign address on a package?

It is worth noting that Coco does sell some of the albums from a group called Woodsoft, which is one of the larger circles of artists (it includes Lukar, Yuji Takase and Toshinori Hiramatsu, 3 guys whose music I can live off of). Really, she could clean up just buying the albums in Japan and offering them for sale on her site, since champs and YJ sellers don't have a similar set-up.

As an aside, I have to vouch for a good doujin album from the US side of things, since I've been listening to it for about a week solid:

http://www.purevolume.com/kidoverdrive

Megaman arranges and good ones, although they fall squarely in the realm of transcriptions. But really nice guitar and sax (and drums) that sound like a live band performance instead of one guy doing everything.

You have anything by magical Trick Society?

Does anybody have that Castlevania doujin that Nemo is selling?

I thought my price for that one was pretty reasonable, it's 3000 yen on YAJ, I'm hurt. It's unfortunately out of print, hence the increasing price.

For some info about buying doujins, this topic delved into it:

http://www.altpop.com/stc/forums/viewtopic.php?id=1469

Otaku.com sometimes sells doujin albums, and so does Kahori at Cocoebiz.  Else ebay search, there's a couple of falcom doujin albums currently on ebay at the moment.

If you're looking on Y!J, try these searches:

(searches for "doujin" in the category of game music CDs)
http://search3.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/ … 0jp&acc=jp

(searches for "arrange" in the category of game music CDs, which are usually doujin CDs)
http://search3.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/ … 2084006972

The second of these searches will usually net you a far greater selection to look through.

No offense to Nemo, but albums, doujin or not, are hit or miss for me, as I have specific ("picky") tastes, I'm not spending large amounts of money without hearing it first.  I cannot rely on anybody's written review.

I normally don't do this, but I like you, Stephen, and you seem to want to do it the right way rather than run down to your local P2P and pillage whatever you can, so here's their arrange of the first level of Rondo from the Odi et Amo album:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/e0gejy

Although it wasn't necessary for you to do that, thanks for the sample, Nemo.  This track sounds really close to the same track on the Dracula X OST by Konami.  If the album is still around later, I might contact you about it.

Actually, I have no use for P2P.  I don't want to have to wade through seedy people's machines looking for samples to figure out my buying decisions.  I have learned to live without.

Yeah, that track is basically the same synth with the addition of real electric guitars to replace the guitar synth.  A lot of MTS stuff is like that, adding live instruments to synth, though some of their stuff is more "creative". I used to not like MTS at all because initially a lot their arrangements sounded so much like the originals, but over time you begin to appreciate the amazing balance of real and synth instrumentation and how they keep the original integrity of the song intact while creating a new experience.  Now I own their whole catalog. It's so much better than the bland grind, grind, grind of groups who try to rock a track out solely with crappy sounding electric guitars (see: 75% of the American doujin artists).

The "Lost Vampire Killer" album I'm selling is much more creative in terms of arrangement style, and features some of the most original and amazing versions of their respective songs period.  You'd probably really dig that, though it's a bit pricey.

And just a heads-up for people who like Lost Child music (S.S.H stuff), there was a sensational doujin album called "Lost Childlen" released last Comiket featuring basically every doujin guitarist that matters (S.O.J, Crow's Claw, Phoenix Project, godspeed, etc.).  Hopefully you have a birthday coming up, otherwise you'd better ask your kids to get it for you for Father's Day, cuz it....uh...KICKS ASS.