An Interview With a Master of Sound

I had the chance to sit down with C418 (Minecraft’s Sound Master) and ask him some questions. It was a lovely interview, and a great read.

Codi: Well first of all, please state your name for the record, I mean tell us a little about yourself.

C418: Daniel Rosenfeld, sir. Germany, somewhere in the east, SIR. Apparently I quit my job a month ago because I thought my music is good enough to actually have people want to buy it. I hope I was right. Obviously the thing everyone knows me from is Minecraft. I do the sounds and musics for it

Codi: And quite the sounds and musics they are. I entered the Nether and immediately turned around, exited the portal, and changed the difficulty. You are quite the sound-smith.

C418: I have had a few weird questions. People believe I strangled a baby and put it in Minecraft. What people don’t realize is that I strangled myself!

Codi: Haha! So then you’d say you’re dedicated to the art?

C418: I think so. Actually I was considering putting in a very old and loud chair as their scream sound instead of my lovely voice

Codi: Well the ambiance is certainly set for The Nether. It’s a place of nightmares, and screams.

C418: Hopefully the screams will … not happen as much when notch fixes the ghast catching fire bug

Codi: Haha. So how did you get started making music?

C418: It was a long way actually. My brother led me to it. When we got a computer my brother literally started making bloopy tunes on dos programs or drawing… not very fancy art with one of the first corel programs, I think. As time progressed my brother got into trackers and very very frequently asked my opinion on this or that song. I think I never cared. At all. And always said I liked his stuff. So, there was this guy in our family always making music. And I was sort of the nerd doing nothing creative but playing video games. Though one day a couple friends of mine had a contest about making the worst song possible. After hearing a few very good contestants. I succeeded and… won.. the contest by just making noise with every mp3 I had on my computer. Worst of all I never stopped making noises. Well, eventually I figured out music can sound good too when I try to do some… I simply never stopped making stuff

Codi: So it was more a process of “Hey I wonder what this does”?

C418: Hm. Partly. Most software being about making bloops and bleeps on the computer incorporate a looot of knobs. So you have to experiment a whopping lot. Though some things are rather obvious. Like putting in a sample and stretching it. So there are both sides involved, it’s not just trial and error. I think if you’d ask a person learning music theory his entire life, he’d say “Trial and error? Are you stupid or something?”

Codi: Interesting. It really goes to show the difference between those that are trained, and those that teach themselves. How did you come about making music for Notch?

C418: We are both nerds and we happen to have the exact same taste in music. And we both idled in the TIGsource irc channel, so one thing led to another basically. He liked the music I showed and wanted me to do music for his sandbox game. Back then everything was meant to be free, so we would have never thought that Minecraft would be ever considered a.. smash hit

Codi: How has your life and music career been affected by Minecraft’s Popularity?

C418: Deeply. Before Minecraft I would have never thought that my music would ever make money in any way. I thought it would be a free time thing my entire life. Though now I think I can make music or sound full-time and could live with it. The reception was mostly uh… good too.

C418: Well. Mostly, because people tend to turn off the music slider in Minecraft.

Codi: I think with the computer world of today, it’s getting a little more difficult for the music to stand out in a PC game. I know I for one, have been turning off game music for years, because there doesn’t seem to be a lot of time or effort put into it. But Minecraft is different, I find myself eagerly awaiting the next bit of music.

C418: I try to put in all my effort. To tell you the truth the first three songs ever to be in Minecraft weren’t a thing of effort. I hope with the Halloween update people noticed a change of tone in the music, for the better! Though as of now the sound engine is kind of a garbled mess of wobbly code, so I have to wait for someone to fix it…

Codi: That someone being the increasingly popular, and swamped Notch.

C418: Or someone else! Might not be him.

Codi: That is true, I hear Mojang Specifications is hiring new people.

Codi: So where do you see your music going? Would you like to take it towards a goal, or just continue making music you like and hopefully getting paid for it?

C418: Haha. I’m not interested in payments for Minecraft. I get a single payment per song from Notch, and it’s not that much. I just want to make this beautiful game audible. My current goal is to have biome, day/night time and world specific music. I would have done area specific stuff too, like being in a cave. Though I had to take a step back there as we figured that it’s immensely hard to figure out if you are in a cave or not in a completely randomly generated world. Oh, and people say I should ask for a raise. I should. Heh.

Codi: Well you certainly are doing an amazing job making music and sounds for minecraft. I’ve noticed subtle music queues towards day/night transitions, and they seem to always play the “Creepy cave music” when I’m near a cave while mining, but I haven’t found it yet. Were those intentional, or am I making something out of nothing?

C418: These creepy sounds were just a fun little experiment I started and Notch had the perfect idea to implement them in the game. I am not telling you why or how they are getting triggered though, because that’s the only thing people have not yet figured out!

Codi: I guess we’ll just have to keep guessing then.

Codi: So how much do you and Notch communicate on how sound works in Minecraft? Is it mostly a Notch says what he wants, and you give him something, or is it more collaborative?

C418: Actually I am the only person deciding what Minecraft should sound like. Notch sometimes says a sound effect should be tweaked, but otherwise I have complete freedom of what I’m doing. I think that’s a very important thing with a collaborative work. If I want to do something, like the biome specific music, I discuss with Notch if it’s possible and how it could work. The rest is all my job. Well, except the programming part. Which is why it’s a mess perhaps.

Codi: It’s rare to see complete creative freedom in this day and age.

C418: Yeah, I think so too. Usually music gets outsourced and the developers want to see something extremely specific, not wanting to have anything special.

Codi: Well with the industry being in the state it is, where quantity is being emphasized over quality, it’s sad to see it, but it’s not unexpected.

C418: There are a few companies that try to differ though. Bungie is a big one, having a huge sound studio with the most amazing musicians you could imagine.

Codi: I remember my friend bringing me the soundtrack to the first Halo, and it sounded amazing. The Half-Life games have also stood above the rest with sound and music.

C418: Hm, I don’t really know about Valve. I think they do outsource most of their sound stuff. The sound engine is an amazing piece of work, but generally they don’t allow that much creativity with music. Well, except they can afford it. Best example being Portal.

Codi: I don’t think they were always that way, but it seems like that’s the case now.

Codi: Well I think that’s about all the questions I had for you.

C418: Alright. Thanks for interviewing me!