Key takeaways
- There are 15 music discs, and only two of them have a renewable source – everything else comes from one-time loot.
- Creepers killed by skeleton arrows drop a disc, which is the only farmable method and the reason skeleton-plus-creeper setups exist.
- A jukebox outputs a comparator signal unique to each disc, which makes a disc a 15-state redstone input as well as music.
Music discs occupy a strange place in Minecraft. They are one of the oldest collectibles in the game, they are genuinely hard to complete a set of, and until recently the reward for collecting them was a block that plays one of them at a time while you stand next to it. Most players find four or five over hundreds of hours and never think about them again.
That changed with jukebox playlists, which turn a chest into a queue. A disc collection is now a thing you can build a room around rather than a shelf of items. This guide covers where each disc actually comes from, the one method that is renewable, and the redstone behaviour most people do not know about.
Where discs come from
Sources, in rough order of how often you will actually hit them:
Creeper killed by a skeleton. When a creeper dies to a skeleton’s arrow, it drops a random music disc. This is the only renewable source, and it is the entire reason the method exists in the first place – Mojang put a farmable route behind an interaction neither mob initiates on purpose.
Dungeon and structure chests. Dungeons, woodland mansions, strongholds, ancient cities, bastions and trial chambers all have discs in their loot tables at varying rates. Our structure loot guide covers which chests are worth the trip generally.
Wandering trader. A small number of discs can be bought, which is the least reliable route but costs nothing but emeralds if the offer appears.
Fishing. Not a source. This catches people out because fishing produces so much else – our fishing loot guide covers what the treasure table actually contains.
The split matters: the creeper method gives you random discs forever, and the structure method gives you specific discs once. A full collection needs both.
The creeper and skeleton method
The mechanic is simple and the execution is fiddly. You need a skeleton to shoot a creeper, and neither mob wants to do that – skeletons target players, and the creeper has to be between you and the skeleton at the moment the arrow lands.
The manual version:
- Find a skeleton and a creeper at night or in a cave.
- Position yourself so the creeper is directly between you and the skeleton.
- Let the skeleton shoot past you. The arrow hits the creeper.
- Repeat until the creeper dies to arrows rather than to you.
The important detail is that the killing blow has to come from the skeleton. Softening the creeper yourself is fine; landing the last hit is not.
The farm version builds the same interaction deliberately – a skeleton held in place with a line of fire into a chamber where creepers are funnelled. Our spawn-proofing guide covers getting the spawn rates right, which is the hard part. Light the surrounding area so the mob cap is not full of mobs you do not want.
Jukebox playlists
The newer mechanic, and the one that makes a collection worth having. Place a Chest, Trapped Chest, or any Copper Chest variant directly above a jukebox and the chest’s contents become the playlist.
How it behaves:
- Discs play in slot order from the first slot, looping back to the start after the last one.
- Empty slots and non-disc items are skipped, so you do not need to pack the chest.
- When a disc finishes, the jukebox swaps it with the next disc rather than ejecting it.
- Ejecting the current disc manually skips to the next one, which makes the jukebox its own skip button.
- A chest with no discs in it means the loaded disc repeats.
Because ordering is slot order, rearranging the chest rearranges the playlist. That is the whole interface, and it is a good one. Our coverage of the snapshot that added it has the rest of the detail.
The comparator trick
This is the part that belongs in a redstone guide and almost never appears in one. A jukebox with a disc in it outputs a comparator signal, and the signal strength is different for each disc.
That makes a jukebox a 15-state input device. Put a specific disc in and you get a specific signal strength, which a comparator chain can decode into a specific action. Practical uses:
- A disc-operated door. Only the correct disc produces the signal that opens it.
- Multi-output selection. One jukebox, fifteen possible outputs, chosen by which disc you insert.
- Playlist-driven lighting. A comparator reading the jukebox changes the room lighting as the playlist advances, now that the disc in the slot changes on its own.
That last one is new. Before playlists, the disc in a jukebox only changed when a player changed it, so the comparator output was static. With a playlist running, the signal strength changes every time a track ends, which gives you a slow automatic sequencer for free. Our comparator guide covers reading signal strengths, and our redstone basics covers the decoding side.
Note blocks are a different thing
Worth separating because people conflate them. Discs play recorded tracks; note blocks produce single tones and are an instrument you sequence yourself.
A note block’s pitch is set by right-clicking it and its instrument is set by the block underneath it. Build a row of them on a redstone line and you have a playable sequence. This is a completely different kind of music room – one where you compose rather than curate – and it pairs well with a disc setup rather than replacing it.
Building the room
The practical layout for a playlist setup is simpler than most people build it. A jukebox at ear height, a chest directly above it, and a wall of item frames holding the discs you are not currently playing so the collection is visible.
Three things that make it work:
- Sound travels about 64 blocks from a jukebox, so one is enough for a reasonably sized building. Two in different rooms will overlap and sound bad.
- The chest above blocks access from that side, so leave the jukebox reachable from the front for manual skipping.
- Item frames on the wall double as storage and as the visual point of the room. Our detail blocks guide covers framing them properly.
Our music room build guide goes through the full design, and our interior lighting guide covers getting a dim, warm room that does not spawn mobs.
Images: Macaw’s Furniture project gallery.