Sounds

Terminology

Term	Description
Sound Events	Something that triggers a sound effect. Examples include "minecraft:block.anvil.hit" or "botania:spreaderFire".
Sound Category	The category of the sound, for example "player", "block" or simply "master". The sliders in the sound settings GUI represent these categories.
Sound File	The literal file on disk that is played, usually an .ogg file.

sounds.json

This json should be located in the assets directory of a mod: src/main/resources/assets/<modid>/sounds.json. This file declares sound events and identifies which sound files they use.

A full specification is available on the vanilla wiki, but this example highlights the important parts:

{
  "open_chest": {
    "category": "block",
    "subtitle": "mymod.subtitle.openChest",
    "sounds": [ "mymod:open_chest_sound_file" ]
  },
  "epic_music": {
    "category": "record",
    "sounds": [
      {
        "name": "mymod:music/epic_music",
        "stream": true
      }
    ]
  }
}

Underneath the top-level object, each key corresponds to a sound event. Note that they are written in the sounds.json without the modid. Each event specifies its category, and a localization key to be shown when subtitles are enabled. Finally, the actual sound files to be played are specified. Note that the value is an array; if multiple sound files are specified then the game will randomly choose one to play whenever the sound event is triggered.

The two examples represent two different ways to specify a sound file. The wiki has precise details, but generally, long sound files such as BGM or music discs should use the second form, because the “stream” argument tells Minecraft to not load the entire sound file into memory but instead to stream it from disk. The second form can also specify the volume, pitch, and random weight of that sound file.

In all cases, the path to a sound file for domain domain and path path is assets/<domain>/sounds/<path>.ogg. Therefore mymod:open_chest_sound_file points to assets/mymod/sounds/open_chest_sound_file.ogg, and mymod:music/epic_music points to assets/mymod/sounds/music/epic_music.ogg.

Creating Sound Events

In order to actually be able to play sounds, a SoundEvent corresponding to an entry in sounds.json must be created. This SoundEvent must then be registered. Normally, the location used to create a sound event should be set as it’s registry name.

Creating a SoundEvent:

ResourceLocation location = new ResourceLocation("mymod", "open_chest");
SoundEvent event = new SoundEvent(location);

The SoundEvent acts as a reference to the sound, and is passed around to actually play sounds. Therefore, the SoundEvent should be stored somewhere. If a mod has an API, it should expose its SoundEvents in the API.

Playing Sounds

Vanilla has lots of methods for playing sounds, and it’s unclear which to use at times.

Note that each takes a SoundEvent, the ones registered above. Additionally, the terms “Server Behavior” and “Client Behavior” refer to the respective logical side.

World

1. playSound(EntityPlayer, BlockPos, SoundEvent, SoundCategory, volume, pitch)

   • Simply forwards to overload (2), adding 0.5 to each coordinate of the BlockPos given.

2. playSound(EntityPlayer, double x, double y, double z, SoundEvent, SoundCategory, volume, pitch)

   • Client Behavior: If the passed in player is the client player, plays the sound event to the client player.
   • Server Behavior: Plays the sound event to everyone nearby except the passed in player. Player can be null.
   • Usage: The correspondence between the behaviors implies that these two methods are to be called from some player-initiated code that will be run on both logical sides at the same time - the logical client handles playing it to the user and the logical server handles everyone else hearing it without re-playing it to the original user. They can also be used to play any sound in general at any position server-side by calling it on the logical server and passing in a null player, thus letting everyone hear it.

3. playSound(double x, double y, double z, SoundEvent, SoundCategory, volume, pitch, distanceDelay)

   • Client Behavior: Just plays the sound event in the client world. If distanceDelay is true, then delays the sound based on how far it is from the player.
   • Server Behavior: Does nothing.
   • Usage: This method only works client-side, and thus is useful for sounds sent in custom packets, or other client-only effect-type sounds. Used for thunder.

WorldClient

1. playSound(BlockPos, SoundEvent, SoundCategory, volume, pitch, distanceDelay)
   • Simply forwards to World‘s overload (3), adding 0.5 to each coordinate of the BlockPos given.

Entity

1. playSound(SoundEvent, volume, pitch)
   • Forwards to World‘s overload (2), passing in null as the player.
   • Client Behavior: Does nothing.
   • Server Behavior: Plays the sound event to everyone at this entity’s position.
   • Usage: Emitting any sound from any non-player entity server-side.

EntityPlayer

1. playSound(SoundEvent, volume, pitch) (overriding the one in Entity)
   • Forwards to World‘s overload (2), passing in this as the player.
   • Client Behavior: Does nothing, see override in EntityPlayerSP.
   • Server Behavior: Plays the sound to everyone nearby except this player.
   • Usage: See EntityPlayerSP.

EntityPlayerSP

1. playSound(SoundEvent, volume, pitch) (overriding the one in EntityPlayer)
   • Forwards to World‘s overload (2), passing in this as the player.
   • Client Behavior: Just plays the Sound Event.
   • Server Behavior: Method is client-only.
   • Usage: Just like the ones in World, these two overrides in the player classes seem to be for code that runs together on both sides. The client handles playing the sound to the user, while the server handles everyone else hearing it without re-playing to the original user.