Ambience

Ambience (also called ambience sounds or ambient sounds) are sounds that can be heard when the player is near dark areas or underwater.

There are 2 types of ambience: Cave and Underwater.

These sounds were made by C418, who also composed the game's music and Samuel Åberg who is the "lead sound designer".

The volume of ambient sounds can be changed through "Music & Sounds" in the Options menu, by changing the "Ambient/Environment" bar.

Cave ambience
Cave ambience (cave sounds in Legacy Console Edition and eerie noise according to subtitles) is a set of sounds that occasionally play when the player is in proximity to a dark space. Their nature is to be disturbing.



Cave ambience sounds can be played in any dimension, including the Nether and the End, and can be heard in both singleplayer and multiplayer.

These sounds play in dark (light level lower than 9) areas. Such areas don't need to be sealed off or hidden, as ambience can be heard from a space that the player can actually see, nor does the player need to be underground for them to play. Cave ambience can occur in a space of any size, but they seem much more likely to play in larger spaces that are completely filled with a light level lower than 9, without any lighting from the sky.

There are 19 cave ambience sounds in total, one of which is picked randomly when the game decides to play one.

Underwater ambience
Underwater ambience is a set of sounds that play while the player's head is underwater. They can be heard within a body of water of any size and in any dimension.

The sound "underwater ambience" plays in an endless loop, while the other sounds occur randomly.

There are 22 underwater ambience sounds in total:

Trivia



 * Some of the ambience sounds seem to be made by creatures/vehicles/technology/instruments that don't exist within the game, such as the sounds Bass Whale 1 and Bass Whale 2.
 * When "Cave 14" is viewed in a spectrogram, it appears to contain the face of a creeper. This is an easter egg made by C418. Disc 11 shows a similar easter egg while viewed in a spectrogram.
 * "Cave 8" sounds like a blaze breathing.
 * "Bass Whale 1" and "Bass Whale 2" sound like whale songs.