C418

Daniel Rosenfeld (born 9 May 1989), better known as C418 (pronounced "see four eighteen"), is a German musician, producer and sound engineer, best known as the composer and sound designer for the sandbox video game Minecraft.

He has also written and produced the theme for Beyond Stranger Things and the soundtrack for the Steam release of Cookie Clicker.

He has also DJed for American rock band Anamanaguchi.

Rosenfeld's music has received acclaim for its nostalgic value and relaxing quality.

In August 2023, he was ranked at #1 on Billboard magazine's emerging artist's chart.

Rosenfeld was born in East Germany on 9 May 1989, the son of a Soviet-born father of German descent working as a goldsmith and a German mother.

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.

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.

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."

Rosenfeld has also stated that he was "mediocre at school," but learning basic music theory and English came easy to him.

After being introduced to music production by his brother, Rosenfeld started releasing music on Bandcamp after Danny Baranowsky suggested releasing his music on the site.

In 2007, Rosenfeld started a blog known as "Blödsinn am Mittwoch" ( English: "Silliness on Wednesday" ), 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 (among them, Rosenfeld unofficially released the soundtracks of Zombie Dog in Crazyland and Mubbly Tower on his site and old blog ).

Later, Rosenfeld started making albums and releasing them on the blog and also Bandcamp, as a hobby.

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, where it was available until it was removed in 2013, due to Rosenfeld's dislike of the album.

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".

In early 2009, Rosenfeld began collaborating with the Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson through an internet forum called TIGSource.

Rosenfeld was responsible for the sound effects and music in Persson's work-in-progress video game Minecraft.

The sound engine in the still young Java game was not very powerful, so Rosenfeld had to be creative in his approach to creating sound effects and music.

In January 2010, fourth studio album A Cobblers Tee Thug, a collaborative work with Rosenfeld's friend Sohnemann was released.

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.

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.

In August 2010, Rosenfeld released Life Changing Moments Seem Minor in Pictures.

The album was recorded while Rosenfeld was still residing within Germany,  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.

The album also contains the original soundtrack to Ezo, a game Rosenfeld independently developed for Ludum Dare.

In 2011 a series of compilation albums with songs from various projects were released on Bandcamp for free, including Little Things, I Forgot Something, Didn't I. (a B-side to 72 Minutes of Fame), and Seven Years of Server Data.

While still working on Minecraft as a freelance artist, Rosenfeld was not on staff at Mojang Studios, the company behind Minecraft.

Rosenfeld still owns the rights to all his music in the game, and has released two albums featuring songs from the Minecraft soundtrack.

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.

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.

This album was the first of Rosenfeld's works to have a (limited) physical release.

The Guardian has compared his compositions to those of Brian Eno and Erik Satie because of their minimalistic, ambient quality.

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.

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.