Daniel Rosenfeld

Daniel Rosenfeld
Birth name Daniel Rosenfeld
Also known as C418
Born May 9, 1986
Germany
Genres Ambient, electronic, IDM, experimental
Occupation(s) Independent musician, sound engineer
Years active 2006–present
Website c418.org

Daniel Rosenfeld (born May 9, 1986) is a musician and sound engineer best known as the composer and sound designer for the computer game Minecraft. His music is generally published under the name C418.[1]

Rosenfeld was born and grew up in East Germany before reunification, and the economic realities of the region limited his resources to learn audio composition . He says he learned on early versions of Schism Tracker and Ableton Live, which were both rudimentary tools at the time.[2] Learning under such restrictions turned out to help the young composer when he began collaborating with Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson. The sound engine in the game was not very powerful, so Rosenfeld had to be creative in his approach to sound effects and music.[2]

As a freelance artist, Rosenfeld was not on staff at Mojang,[3] the game company behind Minecraft, which was sold to Microsoft in 2014. Rosenfeld says he still owns the rights to all the music in the game,[4] having released two albums featuring songs from the soundtrack.[3] The first soundtrack, Minecraft – Volume Alpha, was released on March 4, 2011. The video game blog Kotaku selected the music of Minecraft as one of the best video game soundtracks of 2011.[5] On November 9, 2013, Rosenfeld released the second official soundtrack, titled Minecraft – Volume Beta, which includes the music that was added in later versions of the game.[6]

Persson and Rosenfeld teamed up again after Minecraft '​s success in the creation of a new game titled 0x10c, but the game was never released, with Persson halting production in August 2013. Rosenfeld released an album featuring his work on the project in September 2014. The album was released digitally with little publicity; Rosenfeld simply sent out a tweet stating that it was available.[7]

In addition to game soundtracks, Rosenfeld composes his own independent music. He has released a large amount of music on his Bandcamp page, but he has only officially released two LPs other than the Minecraft soundtracks: 72 Minutes Of Fame and one.[6] He says he does not seek fame and he struggles with public attention, such as critical comments from his large group of followers on Twitter.[4] The Guardian has compared his compositions to those of Brian Eno and Erik Satie because of their ambient quality.[2]

Discography

Album name Release date Length
circle 2006-03-22 00:35:54
bps 2007-12-23 00:15:32
the whatever directors cut 2008-01-27 00:50:07
Mixes 2008-05-23 00:25:35
sine 2008-09-02 00:19:42
zweitonegoismus 2008-12-16 00:41:04
Bushes and Marshmallows 2009-08-01 01:02:55
A Cobblers Tee Thug 2010-01-05 00:41:40
life changing moments seem minor in pictures 2010-08-12 01:11:53
little things 2011-01-16 00:27:38
Minecraft – Volume Alpha 2011-03-04 00:58:48
I forgot something, didn't I. 2011-07-18 00:37:17
72 Minutes Of Fame 2011-07-19 01:11:58
Seven Years of Server Data 2011-11-03 00:50:45
Catacomb Snatch Original Soundtrack 2012-03-20 00:22:11
The Driver - Savlonic (C418 Remix) 2012-04-01 00:05:38
one 2012-12-23 01:35:28
Minecraft – Volume Beta 2013-11-09 02:20:48
0x10c 2014-09-15 00:03:08

References

  1. LastFM, C418 Bio.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Keith Stuart, How Daniel Rosenfeld wrote Minecraft's music, The Guardian, 7 November 2014.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Luke Plunkett, The Soothing Sounds Of...Minecraft?, Kotaku, 9 March 2011.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Charlie Hall, Minecraft's composer discusses Mojang's unreleased game, Notch's departure, Polygon, 18 September 2014.
  5. Hamilton, Kirk. "All of the Best Video Game Music of 2011". Kotaku. Gawker Media. Retrieved November 14, 2012.
  6. 6.0 6.1 "Minecraft Volume Beta on Bandcamp". November 9, 2013. Retrieved November 9, 2013.
  7. Andy Chalk, Minecraft composer releases 0x10c tracks, muses on Notch's departure from Mojang, PC Gamer, 17 September 2014.

External links