Phonon

Phonon

Give your world a soundtrack. Play your music through placed speakers, tune them to a shared station, or carry it with you in a boombox.

Music where you build

• Speakers: place one in your base and play custom audio with positional sound. Players nearby hear synchronized playback.
• Boombox: take your music along. It keeps playing in your hand, inventory, on your cursor and even after you drop it on the ground.
• Stations: tune multiple speakers and boomboxes to the same named station to keep them in step.
• Queue and playlists: choose what plays next, save named playlists, shuffle and repeat. Playlists show their creator's name and head.
• Your own tracks: add links from YouTube, Bilibili and other sites supported by yt-dlp, or import files from your world folder.
• Redstone: play, pause, stop and skip tracks with signals. Comparators report playback progress, sculk sensors hear playback start and stop, and nearby parrots and allays dance.

Get started

1. Install the matching Phonon and NeoForge versions on both the client and server. The Minecraft version in the jar filename must match your game exactly.
2. Craft a Speaker from a jukebox, or find it in the Functional Blocks or Redstone creative tab.
3. Add a track with /phonon add <link>.
4. Right-click the Speaker, select a track and press Play.

Volume follows Minecraft's Jukebox/Note Blocks slider. Craft a Boombox from a Speaker; use it to open its controls, or sneak and use it to turn it on or off.

Phonon is in beta. The beta builds support Minecraft 26.2 and 1.21.1; other listed Minecraft targets currently have alpha builds. Choose the file for your game version.

Adding audio

Audio imports run on the server machine, or your own PC in singleplayer. Direct OGG links need no extra tools. Other links and non-OGG files use yt-dlp, FFmpeg and Deno. Phonon offers an operator-approved installation when these are first needed, using pinned builds with verified checksums. Server owners can disable this with allowToolInstall.

For local music, put files in phonon_music inside the world folder and run /phonon reload. Supported formats include MP3, WAV, FLAC, M4A, AAC, Opus, WMA and OGG. Original files stay in the folder.

Shared controls

The Speaker screen has Tracks, Queue, Playlists and Stations tabs. Double-click a track to play it, or press + to add it to the queue. Create a station and tune other speakers to it for shared playback.

Server owners can restrict speaker and station controls with ownerOnlySpeakers, or let everyone manage the library with anyoneCanAddTracks.

Commands

Commands require operator permission.

Full documentation and source

Phonon

Listen together in Minecraft. Play your music through speakers and boomboxes, and everyone nearby hears the same moment of the same song.

Watch the trailer on YouTube

What you can do

• Add any song. Find it by title in the game, paste a link, or drop files into the world.
• Place a speaker. The music comes from where it stands. Walk past and it moves, and walls and water muffle it.
• Carry a boombox. It keeps playing in your inventory, on your cursor and on the ground.
• Run a station. One queue, every speaker tuned to it, every player in step, even across dimensions.
• Build playlists. Queue, shuffle and repeat, with playlists saved for the whole server.
• Wire it up. Redstone controls a speaker, comparators read its progress, and parrots dance to it.

Install

Install NeoForge and Phonon on both the client and the server. Download from Modrinth or GitHub, and choose the file whose name has your exact Minecraft version.

Minecraft 26.x needs Java 25, and 1.21.x needs Java 21.

Get started

1. Find the Speaker in the creative menu under Functional Blocks or Redstone Blocks, or craft it once you have a jukebox.
2. Right-click it and type a song's title or paste a link into the search box. You can also run /phonon add <link or title>.
3. Double-click the song to play it.

Volume follows the game's Jukebox/Note Blocks slider.

To add local files, put them in phonon_music inside the world folder and run /phonon reload. MP3, WAV, FLAC, M4A, AAC, Opus, WMA and OGG are accepted, and the originals stay in the folder.

Audio tools

Adding audio happens on the machine that runs the server, which in singleplayer is your own PC. Direct links to OGG files need nothing else. Other links and non-OGG files need yt-dlp, FFmpeg and Deno.

If they are missing, Phonon offers to install them in chat the first time they are needed. An operator clicks to accept, and pinned builds with verified checksums go into phonon/tools in the game folder. Tools already on PATH are used when Phonon hasn't installed its own. Server owners can turn this off with allowToolInstall.

To install them yourself on Windows, run this, then restart the Minecraft Launcher. winget installs FFmpeg and Deno too.

winget install --source winget --id yt-dlp.yt-dlp

When a site blocks the server

Sites often distrust addresses from cloud hosts, and the server does the downloading, so links fail as well as searches. Run /phonon tools update first, since an old yt-dlp fails in similar ways. After that, the server config has downloadProxy and cookiesFile. yt-dlp warns that an account used this way can be banned, so use a spare one and keep the file private.

The speaker screen

• Tracks: the library. Double-click to play, or hover a song for play now, play next and add to a playlist. Typing filters the list, and if you may add songs, the green row below finds what you typed on YouTube, SoundCloud or Bilibili, or adds a pasted link.
• Queue: what's up next. Double-click to jump, or remove a row.
• Playlists: saved lists anyone can make, credited to their creator. Open one to add songs by typing, drag to reorder, and rename it.
• Stations: music one person runs, for everyone who listens in. Typing a new name shares what's playing as a station, and typing an existing name tunes to it. Leave brings your own music back where it was.

The screen says who a button affects, and greys out what you can't change.

Boombox

Craft one from a Speaker, or find it after the music discs in the creative menu. Use it to open its controls, or sneak and use it to switch it on or off. It tunes to stations like a speaker does. Put away in a chest, or with its holder offline, its own music waits and carries on from the same point; a station keeps going without it.

Redstone

A signal turning on acts by side, as seen facing the speaker:

A comparator reads how far through the track the speaker is: 1 at the start up to 15 at the end, and 0 when stopped. Sculk sensors hear it start and stop, and nearby parrots and allays dance.

Commands

All commands need operator permission.

Server settings

Credits

Phonon is greatly inspired by WebDisplays and Sound Physics Remastered.

License

GPL-3.0. Not an official Minecraft product. Not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft.