Ambience

Ambience (also called ambience sounds or ambient sounds) are sounds that can be heard in Minecraft whose goal is to make the gameplay more climatic. As of 1.14, there are two types of ambience: cave ambience and underwater ambience.

These sounds were made by C418, who also composed game's Music

The player can modify how loud Ambience sounds will be heard 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 8) 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 8, 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
"Not to be confused with sound called Water Ambience. Water Ambience is sound created when water is flowing and its loudness is modified by Blocks option, while these are Underwater Ambience, modified by its own option"Underwater ambience (also called underwater sounds or ocean sounds) is a set of sounds that play while the player is underwater—that is, when the player's eyesight line is found inside a block of water. 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 in this condition, while the other sounds can occur randomly.

There are 22 underwater ambience sounds in total:

Trivia



 * Some of the ambience sounds seem to be made by creatures (for example whales) that don't exist within the game, such as the sounds Bass Whale 1 and Bass Whale 2 are made by whales that do not exist in-game.
 * 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 spectogram.