So, you’ve finally found a music disc. Maybe it was a lucky loot chest in a buried treasure or, more likely, you pulled off that stressful maneuver where you trick a skeleton into sniping a creeper. Now you have "Cat" or "Mellohi" sitting in your inventory doing absolutely nothing. You want to hear it. You need to know how to craft jukebox blocks without wasting your precious resources or getting confused by the recipe book.
It’s one of those items that feels like a luxury. It is. But it's also the only way to bring actual, non-ambient music into your base. Honestly, the process is dead simple, yet people still mix it up with the note block. Don't do that.
The Basic Ingredients for Your Music Machine
You don't need much. If you’ve been playing for more than twenty minutes, you probably have 90% of the materials sitting in a dusty chest near your furnace. The recipe is a square of any wooden planks with a single diamond right in the middle.
Specifically, you need eight wooden planks. It doesn't matter what kind. You can mix and match oak, spruce, warped planks from the Nether, or even that fancy cherry wood if you’re feeling aesthetic. The game doesn't care about the wood's "vibe," only its data tag as a plank. Then comes the "expensive" part: one diamond.
Early game, a diamond feels like a lot. You’re thinking about pickaxes or enchantment tables. But think about it—what’s a single blue rock compared to the ability to blast "Pigstep" while you sort your cobblestone? To craft it, open your crafting table and fill every slot except the center one with your planks. Drop that diamond into the dead center. Boom. Jukebox.
Jukeboxes vs. Note Blocks: The Great Confusion
I see this all the time on forums and Discord servers. Someone tries to how to craft jukebox blocks but ends up with a pile of note blocks instead. They look similar-ish, but they serve completely different masters.
A note block is a redstone instrument. It uses a piece of Redstone dust in the center instead of a diamond. It plays a single note when you hit it or trigger it with a signal. It's for making your own songs, which is a massive headache unless you're a literal musical genius or have a lot of patience for repeaters. The jukebox? It’s a passive player. You put a disc in, it plays the whole song.
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Why the Diamond Matters
The diamond isn't just a "gatekeeper" item to make the jukebox feel rare. In the internal logic of Minecraft’s crafting system, the diamond represents the "needle" or the high-fidelity component required to read the data on those mysterious vinyl-like discs. It’s a permanent fixture. Once you craft the box, you don’t lose the diamond when you play music, obviously. But if you break the jukebox without a Silk Touch tool? Just kidding—you can actually break it with anything, even your fist, and it’ll drop the jukebox item back. You don’t lose the diamond. It’s a safe investment.
Automation and the 1.19.4 Update Change
For the longest time, jukeboxes were a bit of a letdown because you couldn't automate them. You had to manually click the disc in and manually click it out. It was tedious.
Everything changed recently. Now, hoppers actually work with them. This is huge. If you want a continuous loop of "Otherside," you can point a hopper into the top of the jukebox to feed discs in. To get them out, you put a hopper underneath.
Wait. There is a catch.
A hopper underneath will pull the disc out immediately unless the jukebox is actually playing. And even then, it’s a bit finicky. Most players use a redstone comparator coming out of the back of the jukebox. The comparator sends a signal strength based on which disc is playing. Disc 11 (the creepy one) gives a different signal strength than "Chirp." This allows for some wild contraptions where the music ending triggers a pulse that swaps the disc for a new one.
Finding the Discs to Play
Knowing how to craft jukebox components is useless if you don't have the "software." The music discs are the real endgame.
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- Creeper Hunting: This is the "pro" way. You need to weaken a creeper and then stand so a skeleton's arrow hits the creeper instead of you. When the skeleton gets the killing blow, the creeper drops a random music disc.
- Structure Loot: You'll find "13" and "Cat" in dungeons and woodland mansions. "Pigstep" is exclusive to Bastion Remnants in the Nether. It’s arguably the best track in the game, composed by Lena Raine, but it’s a death trap to go find it.
- Ancient Cities: If you’re brave enough to face the Warden, you can find fragments of "5." You have to craft those fragments together. It’s a whole process.
Common Mistakes People Make
Don't put your jukebox right next to a massive wall of note blocks unless you want a headache. Also, remember that the sound has a radius. It’s about 65 blocks. If you walk too far away, the music fades. If you're building a massive mega-base, one jukebox in the middle won't cut it. You’ll need a localized sound system in the rooms you actually spend time in.
Another weird quirk? The jukebox doesn't interact with the "Music" slider in your settings. It’s controlled by the "Players" or "Blocks" slider (depending on your version). If you’ve turned down "Music" because you’re tired of the standard piano soundtrack, your jukebox will still blast at full volume. It’s considered an "in-world" sound effect, not background score.
Making Your Jukebox Functional
To get the most out of your new block, place it on a block that complements your interior design. It doesn't matter what's underneath it for sound quality—unlike note blocks, which change instruments based on the floor material. A jukebox always sounds like a jukebox.
If you're looking for a next step, try building a "Disc Changer."
- Place your jukebox.
- Put a hopper facing into the side of it.
- Put a chest on top of that hopper and fill it with your discs.
- Place a comparator behind the jukebox.
- Use the signal from that comparator to lock a hopper underneath the jukebox so it only pulls the disc out when the music stops.
It sounds complicated, but it’s the difference between a manual record player and a fully functioning 1950s-style diner setup.
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Once you have the diamond and the planks, the world of Minecraft music opens up. It’s a small detail that makes a base feel like a home. Get that diamond, square up those planks, and stop living in silence. Your survival world deserves a soundtrack.