Minecraft: Here’s What Disc 13 Means & How Rare It Is

Minecraft Music Discs have been around ever since the game officially came out and ever before that. Some tunes are just plain old fun to listen to, but others make you realize that Minecraft is a game shrouded in mystery, and is waiting for you to uncover them. One such tune is Music Disc 13. What does it mean, and how rare is it, though?

What makes Disc 13 stand out?

There are 15 discs in the game, and each, except for three numbered, has a name. Disc 13 is one of those discs and receives the most attention, along with the other two, Disc 5 and Disc 11, when trying to figure out what they mean. Coincidentally, all three of these discs are also the ones that play the most unuseful tracks.

Disc 5 is a bit too revealing regarding what it means since it was added in the 1.19 update where the Deep Dark biome was added. Visually, Disc 5 features the colors specific to the Deep Dark biome, and when you listen, it’s clear that The Warden and running away from it occurs while you listen to it. That leaves us with two more Discs to explain.

What makes Disc 13 unique is that it was one of the two Discs that were first added to Minecraft. The other one was the Cat Music Disc which isn’t all that mysterious. Supposedly, Disc 13 was first used as an ambient track and was only later turned into a Music Disc.

Where can you find Music Disc 13?

Music Disc 13 in Woodland Mansions, Ancient Cities, and Dungeons. I first thought that explaining the meaning behind Music Disc 13 could be solved by looking at where you can find them, but unfortunately, that isn’t the case since Disc 5 correlates to the Deep Dark biome and Ancient cities, and you can find Disc 13, and some others, there as well.

All Music Discs can also be found as mob lot. Specifically, a creeper will drop them if killed by a Skeleton, Stray, or Wither Skeleton.

Why 13?

It’s hard to tell why the Discs is named simply 13. The number 13 can mean a lot of things. It can mark Friday the 13th, representing bad luck, but in numerology, the number 13 is associated with the divine. It can bring good luck and prosperity to those who embrace it. I’d combine the two meanings and say that although the number 13 brings bad luck, it can bring about positive change if you fully embrace it.

The more likely reason the Disc is called 13 is that the track goes silent at the 1:30 minute mark. It’s not even a slow fade into silence, either. It’s a blunt cut. After the 11-second mark, we hear a faint creeper sound followed by an explosion.

It’s also more likely that Mojang wanted us to make out whatever story we wanted from Disc 13 and its name since Minecraft encourages you to write your own stories. That’s why there isn’t all that much official lore revealed, either. It’s all about creativity in Minecraft.

Dissecting the sounds from the music disc

Let’s start with the general atmosphere of the Disc. Overall, the sound is unsettling and fits the cave theme ambient well. By this logic, we can guess that Disc 13 has something to do with caves. Perhaps it urges you to explore but be aware of the dangers and the overall feel of caving.

There’s a lot of reverb and metallic clinks playing. If you focus hard enough, you can also hear the sound of skeletons walking. At one point during the Disc, you can listen to a muffled and revered bow firing, indicating that there are Skeletons involved in making the story behind the Disc.

It should be pretty evident by now what story the Disc tells us. We know Creepers drop Discs when killed by a Skeleton, Stray, Or Wither Skeleton (aka when killed with a bow), so Disc 13 urges you to try and make these mobs kill the Creeper because this leads to discovering more Discs. The fact that there’s one more Disc added to the game simultaneously as Disc 13 can easily confirm this fact.

Perhaps the Disc plays ambient music similar to that of caves because you could find these Discs in Dungeons. I’m sure it wasn’t like this before, but perhaps the game devs read into the music just like I did now and then made it a feature that Creepers killed by Skeletons drop Discs and that these Discs can be found in Dungeon Chests.

Other Miscellaneous discs

The only other Disc left to dissect is Disc 11. Supposedly, Disc 5, 11, and 13 are all connected, but we know this to be false because the Sculk Shireker sounds we hear on Disc 5 were added to the game years after Disc 11 and ¸13 came out. There’s no doubt that 11 and 13 are connected, and you can listen to them together to better understand the story behind them.

Disc 5 fits into this, perhaps only because the devs and music composers made an effort to make them all work together. So how do Discs 11 and 13 fit together? Well, they’re both trying to tell the story of caving, that’s for sure. We can perhaps know that the two Discs are connected because of that 11-second pause on disc 13.

What can you do with discs?

There’s a lot you can do with Discs in Minecraft, but probably the best thing is playing these Discs to make parrots dance. Discs can also be used in making Redstone contraptions since if you place a comparator next to the jukebox, the signal strength increases or decreases depending on which Disc you’re currently playing. Music Disc 13 gives you an intensity of 1.

How can you make your own music in Minecraft?

Minecraft music can be described as 8-bit, and you can make your music using note blocks. Note blocks look like Jukeboxes, but their top texture differs from a Jukebox. Note blocks can be crafted using Redstone dust and wooden planks, and depending on which league you place them on, the Note Blocks will produce different sounds, and you change the pitch by right-clicking on them. The color of the note that appears once the Note Block is played determines the note’s pitch.

Players have created the Minecraft Note Block studio to make it easier, which allows you to create music just like you would in Ableton, for example, and then export it as a build to Minecraft.

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