This is the script for my video, “Who is C418, the man who changed Minecraft forever” Uploaded Sep 17, 2023

Please forgive any spelling or grammatical mistakes that may occur in this script as I originally wrote this for my own eyes and did a minimal amount of spelling and grammatical correction.

The script may not be completely accurate to what I say in the video as I often improvise as i’m reading the script in the recording stages of video production.

For other creators,

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Who is C418?

On May 9th, 1989, Daniel Rosenfeld was born in East Germany

For anyone who doesn't know, C418 is the man who created Minecraft music- he may seem kinda… boring, but just stay with me here, he is very important…

Minecraft probably wouldn’t be the same without him.

Little disclaimer, the video isn't going to be a breakdown of exactly why is music was so successful, that's already been done, and (I'll link some videos in the description if you’re interested in learning more).

Well anyways, let’s get into it!

{Early Life}

C418 first learned to create music in the early 2000s on a music software called Schism Tracker, a popular clone of another popular music software called Impulse Tracker.

 He was first introduced to it through his brother, Harry Rosenfeld who told him that even an idiot could successfully create music with it.

C418 was very interested in the art of music creation from a very young age and wanted to make works for video games as he was also very interested in video games. 

He decided to name himself C418 because, because… uh… no reason! C418 doesn't actually mean anything, apparently, Rosenfeild chose it because it sounded really cryptic- I don't really have a source for this besides Wikipedia, so if that fact isn't actually real please don't make fun of me… please…

Well anyway…

C418's career would first start when he was introduced to a website called Bandcamp by his brother in 2002, for anyone who doesn't know what Bandcamp is, was basically an early 2000s SoundCloud. 

C418 would spend the next couple of years making music for small indie games and projects and joining many online music forums. C418 would soon make soundtracks for video games such as Zombie Dog in Crazyland and Mubbly.

C418 would spend the next few years of his life freelancing for small game studios and projects making lots of music and building up a great portfolio, C418 was still greatly motivated to make music although having little success.

This would all soon change…

{Minecraft}

It wasn't until 2009 that C418 would meet Notch on a video game forum called TIGSource, Notch offered a job to C418 would make a soundtrack for a game Notch was working on called “Cave Game” which would soon be renamed Minecraft.  ere some challenges… Java the game engine that Minecraft was developed on was not very powerful at the time and couldn't support audio that was too complex so C418 had to be creative with his approach to creating Minecraft music.

He would have to make the songs very complex, yet very simple trying to encapsulate the free and creative aspects of Minecraft

It would take some time, but C418 would eventually come out with Minecraft's first soundtrack, released on March 4th, 2011 Minecraft Volume Alpha which features 14 main tracks plus 10 bonus tracks making up a total of 24 songs.

You might recognize some of the songs such as Clark, Sweden, beginning, and Moog City which are all considered classics.

I think C418 really took advantage of how peaceful Minecraft is, how lonely it can feel at times, and how dystopian it can feel with you being the only conscious creature in a functionally infinite world. Minecraft’s music being so simple featuring little instruments really benefited it, its made in such a way where it doesn't matter what time of the day you can play each song- it just seems to fit in whether you chopping trees, mining, or have just lost 13 days worth of progress in a hardcore world… because of a skeleton… because I was being stupid…

Minecraft volume alpha was received very well by the community with some saying that Minecraft wouldn't be the same without it.

Minecraft volume Alpha likely contributed at least a little bit to Minecrafts great success. But C418 wasn't done making music for Minecraft…

{Minecraft Volume Beta}

It would take C418 another 2 years to develop- releasing on November 9th, 2013 the second album of Minecraft music titled “Minecraft volume beta” but boy… the wait was worth it… Minecraft volume beta included 30 songs with a lot of classics like Beginning 2 and Chirp as well as my favorite song, Aria Math.

These songs were very similar to his last album including the same principles of replayability and simplicity. They were, again very well received by the Minecraft community and are also considered classics to this day.

As far as we know, this was the last major work C418 would do for Minecraft- but this didn't mean he was done working with notch

C418 would also make some music for a game that Notch was developing in 2014 called 0x10c- I'm not going to spend too much time explaining that game, you can find more info on it in this video up here. Basically, it's a space-based exploration game about (you) the player being trapped out in space long after civilization collapsed, it includes features like multiplayer space battles, an in-game coding system where you can program your ship, and even an infinite universe that you can explore… 

Wait…

I just explained it…

The soundtrack didn't get much attention from the community, notch or C418. Its “failure” wouldn't really even matter because Notch would stop developing the game a little while later, putting it on hold indefinitely.

Later in 2018, C418 did make some small contributions to Minecraft’s soundtrack after the aquatic update, where he would make 3 songs for Minecraft titled “Dragon Fish” “ ” and "Axolotl" which were supposed to be a part of an album called Minecraft Volume Gamma which sadly wasn't fully released (I'm not exactly sure why- probably licensing issues. This would be C418s final contribution to Minecraft.

Why?

There are many minor reasons that C418 stopped working with Minecraft, really just the licensing and payment issues that come with working with a company as large as Microsoft as well as the fact that he didn't have as much creative freedom as he had while working with Notch. With Notch leaving Mojang, in 2014. Most of this is just conjecture- I'm not really sure exactly why C418 left, but it was probably because of those reasons.

Without C418, some of the truly great aspects of Minecraft music seem to have disappeared as the game became more soulless and corporate. 

But this is not one of those goofy ahhh videos about Minecraft dying so let's move on. 

C418's contribution to Minecraft will never be forgotten and his music will live on as his legacy for many years to come- the creation of Minecraft’s music has been replaced by artists such as Lena Raine who are pretty good at replicating the style that C418 but not perfect.

I know I might get hate or say Elena Raine isn't the same, but you can take your Pigstep and Otherside music disks and get right on out of here

I don't know if C418 will ever decide to work with Minecraft again, who knows? 

Although it is done with Minecraft, C418 is still actively making music with him making the cookie-clicker soundtrack in 2021 which was pretty successful.

As far as I know, C418 isn't working on any new albums or music currently- so stay tuned I might make an update video.

bye