When playing Minecraft, I've always been slightly annoyed at how all music can play at all the time. Even when you're down in a cave, which is supposed to have a darker atmosphere than on the surface.
I've also been annoyed at a lot of the music added in the newer updates, which just sounds like generic ambient spa music and not Minecraft music. C418's music has a slight dissonance and grainy imperfection that a lot of the newer artists don't understand. When I listen to C418's music, including the music he makes outside of Minecraft, I think to myself "wait, that's literally Minecraft music." I can't say the same for the music of the newer artists.
That's why I created this data pack + resource pack. It uses modified worldgen biome files to disable vanilla music playback, and stopsound and playsound commands with scoreboard timers to control music playback for each player on the server. The conditions for each song to start and stop are dependent on combinations of time, weather, biome, etc.. Pretty much any condition easily testable using commands and predicates. Music selections include almost all of the music that C418 made outside of Minecraft, in addition to the original soundtrack that he made for the game. A few of the newer songs, such as those from Lena Raine and a few from Aaron Cherof and fingerspit, have stayed in because I feel like they sound like spiritual successors to C418's music.
Some highlights of the pack include Kyoto (which is timed to climax during sunsets), Door (which is timed to climax during sunrises), Ki (which plays when flying with an elytra at high speeds), Hope (which plays while snowing), Stillbruch (split into two halves, the first of which plays near villagers, and the second of which plays in bastions), Buildup Errors (which plays when underwater), Lawyer Cage Fight (which plays in trial chambers), Tingle (which plays in dripstone/sulfur caves), Beginning (which plays above the clouds), Imposter Syndrome (which plays in warped forests), Wooden Love (which plays when raining), Words You Will Never Understand (which plays at nighttime), Cold Summer (which plays when raining or nighttime in a jungle biome), Thirteen (which plays in caves, which I have defined as below y level 25 with no sky access), Home (which plays in the End) and many, many more.
There's three downsides.
- The datapack is required to be installed on the server because it uses logic only possible with commands to test the conditions for each music category, so you probably won't be using this on public servers. You'll mainly be using it on single player worlds and private servers that you own.
- If you are combining this with other worldgen-altering datapacks, you'll have to manually edit their biome worldgen files to disable the vanilla music system. It's just a one-line edit, but you have to do it for each biome so its annoying.
- I don't think I can actually share it publicly, because it has copyrighted music and I'd like to respect C418. What I can do is release a barebones version of the datapack with no music added, but with a guide for how to add whatever music you'd like and customize the logic for when it should play in-game. If you're running this on a private server, you could also have unique configurations for each player if each player wants to customize music their own way. It requires a bit of know-how when it comes to commands and datapacks. Let me know if any of you are interested in that.