Daniel Rosenfeld (born 9 May 1989), known professionally as C418 (pronounced "see four eighteen"),[4] is a German musician, producer and sound engineer. Known for his minimalistic ambient work, he rose to fame as the former composer and sound designer for the sandbox video game Minecraft (2011). Acclaimed for its nostalgic value and relaxing quality, his music for the game is considered one of the greatest video game soundtracks composed.
Rosenfeld was first introduced to music production by his brother Harry, and took it up as a hobby. He met game developer Markus Persson on the online forum TIGSource, and became the sound designer and composer for Persson's project Minecraft. Rosenfeld released the soundtrack albums Volume Alpha (2011) and Volume Beta (2013) for the game, and scored the documentary Minecraft: The Story of Mojang with the album One (2012). He released the album 148 (2015), wrote and produced the theme for Beyond Stranger Things, and released Dief (both 2017). He released the studio album Excursions (2018) and scored the Steam release of Cookie Clicker (2021). Rosenfeld co-founded the independent video game studio Ivy Road with developers Davey Wreden and Karla Zimonja. He is composing the soundtrack for their first game, Wanderstop (2025).
In August 2023, he was ranked at #1 on Billboard magazine's emerging artists chart.[5]
Life and career
Rosenfeld was born in East Germany on 9 May 1989.[6][7] His father was a goldsmith, and his family had a musical background before they pursued other careers.[8] He learned to create music on early versions of Schism Tracker (a popular clone of Impulse Tracker) and Ableton Live in the early 2000s, both rudimentary tools at the time.[9] It was his brother, Harry Rosenfeld, who introduced him to music composition through Impulse Tracker, commenting that "even an idiot" can successfully create music with it.[6][4] His brother was also known as C818, from which he chose the name C418, claiming that the name is "really cryptic and doesn't actually mean anything."[10] Rosenfeld has also stated that he was "mediocre at school," but learning basic music theory and English came easy to him.[6]
2002–2009: Career beginnings
Rosenfeld started releasing music on Bandcamp after Danny Baranowsky suggested releasing his music on the site.[11] In 2007, Rosenfeld started a blog known as "Blödsinn am Mittwoch" (English: "Silliness on Wednesday"),[12] where he posted a new song every week. This was around the same time when he became interested in game development and audio, which resulted in him joining the indie game development forum TIGSource, where he became involved with numerous smaller games and game developers.[6] Among them, Rosenfeld unofficially released the soundtracks of Zombie Dog in Crazyland and Mubbly Tower on an old blog.[13] Later, Rosenfeld started making albums and releasing them on his blog and Bandcamp, as a hobby.[6]
His first release was the 2007 EP BPS, and shortly thereafter, in 2008, he challenged himself to make a studio album as quickly as possible, for fun, prioritizing quantity over quality, The Whatever Director's Cut was released on his blog as BAM #30 and on his Bandcamp,[14] where it was available until it was removed in 2013, due to Rosenfeld's dislike of the album.[15]
Also in 2008, Rosenfeld released Mixes, a 25-minute medley containing remixes of songs previously posted on the blog, also were released the EP Sine, and his second studio album Zweitonegoismus, the album expressed his feelings working in an assembly line factory. Rosenfeld showed the album to his co-worker prior to releasing it, in which they asked "why the hell [he was] still working there".[16]
2009–2013: Minecraft, becoming a freelance composer, and One
In early 2009, Rosenfeld began collaborating with the Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson through TIGSource.[6] Rosenfeld was responsible for the sound effects and music in Persson's work-in-progress video game Minecraft. The sound engine in the still early Java game was not very powerful, so Rosenfeld had to be creative in his approach to creating sound effects and music.[9]
In January 2010, fourth studio album A Cobblers Tee Thug, a collaborative work with Rosenfeld's friend Sohnemann was released.[17] Made in the few days they spent together in the New Year, and they challenged each other, for fun, to make a full-length LP together in those days.[18]
The sixth soundtrack from circle named depado
The album circle was released in March 2010, originally created in 2008, it was intended as the soundtrack for an unpublished indie game bearing the same name, created by an unknown developer.[19]
In August 2010, Rosenfeld released Life Changing Moments Seem Minor in Pictures. The album was recorded while Rosenfeld was still residing within Germany,[20] and at the time of releasing the album, Rosenfeld was requested to work for military services after quitting his job, in which he instead did other labour.[21] The album also contains the original soundtrack to Ezo, a game Rosenfeld independently developed for Ludum Dare.[22]
In 2011 a series of compilation albums with songs from various projects were released on Bandcamp for free, including Little Things,[23]I Forgot Something, Didn't I.[24] (a B-side to 72 Minutes of Fame), and Seven Years of Server Data.[25]
While still working on Minecraft as a freelance artist, Rosenfeld was not on staff at Mojang,[26] the company behind Minecraft. Rosenfeld still owns the rights to all his music in the game,[27] and has released two albums featuring songs from the Minecraft soundtrack.[26] The first soundtrack, Minecraft – Volume Alpha, was digitally released on 4 March 2011 on his Bandcamp page.
Later that year, when Minecraft became available to the general public as an early access title, it rapidly became popular. Rosenfeld, who up until that point had worked at an assembly line for a company in Stollberg, could now pursue music as his primary source of income.[6][28] This inspired his 2011 studio album, 72 Minutes of Fame. The content of this album mostly revolves around this lifestyle-defining moment in Rosenfeld's life.[29] This album was the first of Rosenfeld's works to have a physical release. The Guardian has compared his compositions to those of Brian Eno and Erik Satie because of their minimalistic, ambient quality.[9]
Almost half a year later, production on a documentary of the development of Minecraft started, titled Minecraft: The Story of Mojang. Rosenfeld was requested to create the soundtrack for this documentary, which was included on his 2012 album, One.[30]Vice called it a "gleeful and unobtrusive collection of short melodic instrumentals that skip around daintily like cute little bashful kittens, but with a dark self-deprecating humour lurking beneath".[31]
2013–2016: Minecraft - Volume Beta, 0x10c, and other independent projects
On 9 November 2013, Rosenfeld released the second album of the official soundtrack for Minecraft, titled Minecraft - Volume Beta. Many of the new songs were being added into features of the game that were not present when the first batch of music was produced; i.e. the Nether or the End.[32] In 2020, the soundtrack was released in physical format with Ghostly International[33] and reprints of the Minecraft - Volume Alpha physical releases were also released. The Volume Beta releases consisted of a double CD edition of the album, a vinyl record which came in black and a red "fire" splatter color, and a limited edition of the vinyl pressed on a magenta translucent material[34] which was at first exclusive to Europe but was later re-pressed internationally.
Persson and Rosenfeld worked together again after Minecraft's success on the creation of a new game, titled 0x10c. The game was never released, with Persson halting production indefinitely in August 2013.
In 2014, Rosenfeld released an EP containing the music made for 0x10c. It was released digitally with little publicity; Rosenfeld only sent out a tweet saying that it was available.[35]
In 2015, Rosenfeld released 148, which much like 72 Minutes of Fame carried a significant amount of personal content, albeit slightly more hidden under lyrics and effects.[36]
Later that year, Minecraft - Volume Alpha soundtrack was released on a physical format on Ghostly International.[3] This release consisted of a regular CD edition of the album, a vinyl edition which came with a code for a digital copy of the album, and a limited edition of the album pressed on green translucent vinyl.[37]
Daniel Rosenfeld first revealed the development of his third original soundtrack album for Minecraft in a 2015 interview with Fact Magazine, commenting, "I'll still work on Minecraft, so there'll probably be another album. In fact, it's gonna be more ambient than the others, just as an experiment."[38] He also noted listeners' own applications of his previous works, remarking, "I'm interested in seeing how people use music as a sleep aid, so I think on the next album I might put a bonus track on there that's just 15 minutes of complete ambience and see what people think."[38] Rosenfeld again expressed interest in composing an ambient bonus track for the album in a tweet posted in December of that year.[39]
2016–2021: 2 Years of Failure, Excursions, and further independent music
Rosenfeld released 2 Years of Failure in 2016, a Bandcamp exclusive compilation album of music made for failed projects or songs that could not fit anywhere else.[40] Several songs in this album were made for an abandoned game Rosenfeld described as having a "...Japanese puzzle exchange..." vibe. This album also contains the original soundtrack for Crayon Physics.[40] Most notably, this album contains C418's remix of the Stranger Things theme song, which had staggering popularity in 2018. It was the most played song on Rosenfeld's personal SoundCloud page until it was removed[41] along with several other tracks due to a lapsed SoundCloud Pro subscription.[42]Netflix would go on to use his version as the theme music for the aftershowBeyond Stranger Things.[43]
He released Dief in 2017.[44] The songs of this album were created and used as a soundtrack for an informative talk given at the Game Developers Conference 2017 by Teddy Dief.[45]
In a 2017 tweet, the musician confirmed his third Minecraft soundtrack album's existence and said that it was set for future release, but that work on it at that point was "still far from done". Rosenfeld additionally stated that the record would be longer than the previous two albums combined, which in total clocks in at over 3 hours and 18 minutes.[46] Rosenfeld additionally confirmed on Twitter that the third album will not be called "Minecraft - Volume Gamma", deviating from the Greek Alphabet naming convention used in the previous two Minecraft albums he composed.[47] After the "Update Aquatic" Minecraft update of 2018, three new songs were added to the game as underwater music.[48] These songs – "Dragon Fish", "Shuniji", "Axolotl" – were released by Rosenfeld respectively on 9 August, 10 November, and 12 December 2018, on Spotify as singles. All of them are to be included in the third album. Of the work Rosenfeld did on the third volume, he commented, "When I started making a third minecraft album, I didn't expect it to have this much work involved. I think I'm seeing the end of the tunnel?"[49]
On 20 July 2018, Rosenfeld announced a studio album, Excursions, with the release of its lead single, "Beton".[50] Its second single, "Thunderbird", was released on 20 August 2018.[51] The album was released on 7 September 2018.[52] Multiple tracks on Excursions are named after cafes in Austin, Texas, where Rosenfeld currently lives as of 2017.[citation needed][needs update]
Excursions was released on CD and a limited vinyl LP by Driftless Recordings in January 2019[53] and reprinted in 2021 for CD and Vinyl.[54]
In 2020, after the announcement of the addition of Steve to the game, his work was not included in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for various undisclosed reasons, though one explanation given was it being too calm for fighting.[55] Tracks other composers made for Minecraft Legacy Console Edition, Minecraft Dungeons, and Minecraft Earth were added instead.
On 8 January 2021, Rosenfeld was asked in an interview with Anthony Fantano whether or not the third volume of the soundtrack was still in production. Rosenfeld responded, saying, "I have something—I consider it finished—but things have become complicated, especially as Minecraft is now a big property, so I don't know."[56]
In May 2021, Rosenfeld released Branching Out.[57] The EP contains the soundtrack to Branch, a video conferencing software by Dayton Mills.[58]
2021–present: Cookie Clicker and founding Ivy Road
On 16 June 2021, Rosenfeld announced on Twitter that his album from 11 years prior, Life Changing Moments Seem Minor in Pictures would be remastered and released onto major streaming platforms. The album prior to the re-release was only available on Bandcamp.[59][18]
In July 2021, Rosenfeld, along with Davey Wreden, Karla Zimonja and Annapurna Interactive announced the launch of Ivy Road, a game studio founded by the trio.[60][61] The studio revealed they were working on a then-untitled game, which Rosenfeld composed the music for.
Following the announcement of the launch of Ivy Road, in August 2021 Rosenfeld announced that he had worked on a soundtrack for the Steam release of the 2013 game Cookie Clicker.[62][63] In September 2021, Rosenfeld released the soundtrack.[64]
On 13 March 2022, Rosenfeld performed a DJ set with Anamanaguchi for their Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game Soundtrack tour.[65][66]
In August 2022, Northway Games released I Was a Teenage Exocolonist. Rosenfeld and other fellow musical artists collaborated in composing the soundtrack to the game. His contribution was the piece "Quiet."[67]
In June 2024, Annapurna and Ivy Road announced their game as Wanderstop, a tea brewing simulator.[68][69] It is set for release in early 2025.[70]
In 2024, Rosenfeld made a string of posts on Twitter, one of which declaring that "Trans lives matter and anything else is unacceptable. You're talking about a tiny percentage of the population, leave them the f**k alone." Rosenfeld said these posts were part of an experiment to compare how Twitter moderated these posts compared to other platforms, following changes to the blocking feature on the platform.[72]
Ghostly International is an American independent record label founded in 1999 by Samuel Valenti IV and currently headquartered in Brooklyn, New York City. Chief artists include Matthew Dear, Dabrye, Com Truise, Tycho, Gold Panda, School of Seven Bells, Mux Mool, and Shigeto.
Minecraft is a 2011 sandbox game developed and published by Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios. Originally created by Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java programming language, the first public build was released on 17 May 2009. The game would continue to be developed over the span of two years, until its full release on 18 November 2011. Afterwards, Persson left Mojang and gave Jens "Jeb" Bergensten control over the game's development. In the years since its release, it has been ported to several platforms, including smartphones, tablets, and various video game consoles. In 2014, Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property were purchased by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion. Minecraft has since become the best-selling video game of all-time, with over 300 million copies sold and nearly 170 million monthly active players as of 2024.
Laura Shigihara is a Japanese-American singer-songwriter, composer, video game developer, and Twitch streamer. She is best known as the lead composer and sound designer for the tower defense game Plants vs. Zombies and the creator of the acclaimed indie RPG Rakuen.
Markus Alexej Persson, also known as Notch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He is the creator of Minecraft, which is the best-selling video game in history. He founded the video game development company Mojang Studios in 2009.
Mojang Studios is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. The studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time.
Jens Peder Bergensten, known professionally as Jeb, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He is best known as the lead designer of Minecraft, and is the chief creative officer of Mojang Studios. In 2013, he, along with Minecraft creator Markus Persson, was named as one of Time's 100 most influential people in the world. As an employee of Mojang Studios, he had been co-developing Minecraft with Persson since 2010, became the lead designer in 2011, and assumed full control in 2014, when Persson left the company after its acquisition.
Minecraft – Volume Alpha is the first soundtrack album by the German electronic musician Daniel Rosenfeld, known by his pseudonym C418. Created for the 2011 video game Minecraft, it is the first of two albums to come from the game's soundtrack. It primarily consists of simplistic ambient music, though some tracks are more upbeat. The simplistic nature of the album's music was caused by the technical limitations of Minecraft's sound engine, which made earlier concepts unfeasible. Volume Alpha was released digitally in March 2011 as Rosenfeld's first commercial release, with a physical release issued by record label Ghostly International in 2015.
0x10c is an unfinished sandbox science fiction video game previously under development by Mojang AB. It was announced on April 3, 2012, by Markus Persson, the game's lead designer. The game was indefinitely postponed because Persson found himself burned out and demotivated after so much early effort were spent into planning and designing the game, up until the point that it "sucked out any fun from the project". Persson then stated he will instead most likely continue to work on smaller projects for the rest of his life, rekindling the reason he loves programming games in the first place. The game was later cancelled.
The music of the 2009 video game Minecraft, developed by Mojang Studios, primarily consists of two soundtrack albums by German musician Daniel Rosenfeld, better known as C418. American composer Lena Raine has also contributed music for four major updates to the game since 2020, alongside Aaron Cherof and Kumi Tanioka who worked on the most recent version in 2024. Music included in downloadable content (DLC) for legacy console versions of the game was handled by British musician Gareth Coker.
Minecraft: The Story of Mojang is a 2012 documentary film directed by Paul Owens. It is about the history of the company Mojang and its creation, Minecraft. The film features interviews with company personnel such as Markus Persson and Jens Bergensten and insights from people involved in the gaming industry and from players profoundly impacted by the game. The film was produced by 2 Player Productions.
Minecon, also known as Minecraft Live, is an annual interactive livestream and fan convention about the video game Minecraft, hosted by Mojang. The first gathering in 2010 was known as MinecraftCon. The event then went by the Minecon name from 2011 to 2019. The Minecon 2011 convention was held in Las Vegas and celebrated the launch of the game with Minecraft-related discussion panels and gaming areas. The last in-person convention, Minecon 2016, held in Anaheim, had 12,000 attendees. An attempt at returning to in-person events was prevented due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jimmy Hinson, also known as Big Giant Circles, is an American musician and composer in the video games industry. Originally adopting the name as a hobbyist submitting video game music remixes/rearrangements to OverClocked ReMix, Hinson now actively composes video game soundtracks. He has contributed to the soundtracks of Borderlands 2, Threes!, There Came an Echo, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix,Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Mass Effect 2. Hinson is credited with his work on several independent games including Pocket Mine and Extreme Roadtrip 2, and has contributed to OverClocked ReMix. His style has garnered him praise from Daniel Floyd of Extra Credits and Anthony and Ashly Burch of Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'?, as well as positive press from Kotaku and GameTrailers.
Minecraft – Volume Beta is the fourth soundtrack album by German electronic musician Daniel Rosenfeld, known by his pseudonym C418. It was independently released on 9 November 2013 as the second installment of the soundtrack for the video game Minecraft, and has been physically released by record label Ghostly. The album peaked twice at number 14 on the Billboard Top Dance/Electronic Albums Chart in 2013 and 2023.
A Minecraft mod is a mod that changes aspects of the sandbox game Minecraft. Minecraft mods can add additional content to the game, make tweaks to specific features, and optimize performance. Thousands of mods for the game have been created, with some mods even generating an income for their authors. While Mojang Studios does not provide an API for modding, community tools exist to help developers create and distribute mods. The popularity of Minecraft mods has been credited for helping Minecraft become one of the best-selling video games of all time.
Hat Films is an English comedy and gaming YouTube channel comprising Ross Hornby, Alex Smith and Chris Trott. Since 2014, they have been part of The Yogscast network.
The following is a comprehensive discography of C418, the pseudonym of German electronic musician Daniel Rosenfeld and who is best known for producing the majority of the soundtrack of the 2011 video game Minecraft. His discography comprises eight major studio albums, five Bandcamp exclusive studio albums, nine compilation albums, seven EPs, two mixtapes, 11 remixes, seven singles and three music videos. Rosenfeld has also completed a third volume of the Minecraft soundtrack, but citing licensing issues with Microsoft, the album has not been released.
Lena Raine, also known as Lena Chappelle or Kuraine, is an American-Canadian composer, producer, and video game developer. Raine is best known for her work on the soundtracks of Celeste, Minecraft and Guild Wars 2. She has composed music for various other video games, including Deltarune and Chicory: A Colorful Tale.
Minecraft is a media franchise developed from and centered around the video game of the same name. Primarily developed by Mojang Studios, the franchise consists of five video games, along with various books, merchandise, events, and an upcoming theatrical film. Microsoft acquired Mojang Studios in 2014, alongside the Minecraft franchise and its editions.
The End Poem is a poem by Julian Gough that appears in the end credits of the video game Minecraft. It is the only narrative text in the mostly unstructured sandbox game. Markus "Notch" Persson, Minecraft's creator, invited Gough to create the poem in 2011; it initially appeared in Beta version 1.9. The poem takes the form of a 1,500-word dialogue between two unspecified, godlike entities, discussing what the player has done in the game, which it compares to a dream. Critical reception of the poem has been mostly neutral to positive, often emphasising its oddness; it has been positively received among Minecraft fans.
Wanderstop is an upcoming life simulation game developed by Ivy Road and published by Annapurna Interactive. It is written and directed by Davey Wreden, composed by C418, and created with Karla Zimonja. It follows a former warrior named Alta, who seeks to heal her trauma from fighting in an arena by tending to a tea shop and helping its patrons.
↑ Selent, Christian (1 February 2020). "Von Blöcken und Platten"[Of Blocks and Slabs]. 371 Stadtmagazin | Das Magazin für Chemnitz (in German). Archived from the original on 29 September 2022. Retrieved 11 June 2023.
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