Re: Setting the midiInstrument to "woodblock" ruins the woodblock sound?

On Fri, Jun 12, 2026 at 5:25 PM Knute Snortum <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jun 12, 2026 at 1:11 PM Kevin Cole <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Thinking I was doing the "right thing" I added `\set
>> Staff.midiInstrument = "woodblock"`
>> to a "metronome" snippet. I was puzzled when wbh and wbl sounded identical. Lo
>> and behold, when I removed it, the two sounded quite different.
>>
>> This seems very counterintuitive and confusing to me. Why would telling it the
>> instrument o use break it?

> Allow me a little constructive criticism: The MWE that everyone quotes stands for Minimum Working Example, but your example is not working.  Many people will simply not answer your question without a working example, but to be instructive, I made some changes so that the example "works."  "Works" in quotes because my example doesn't have the behavior you mentioned.  This is why an MWE is so important.

In my effort to make MWE I went too far. Two separate MWEs attached.
One line commented out makes the failing one work.

% Works

\version "2.26.0"
\language "english"

metronome = {
% \set Staff.midiInstrument = "woodblock"
  \drummode {
    \repeat volta 66 {
      wbh4 wbl4 wbl4 wbl4
    }
  }
}

\score {
  \unfoldRepeats {
    \new DrumStaff = "metronome" \metronome
  }

  \midi {
    \tempo 4=155
  }
}

% Fails

\version "2.26.0"
\language "english"

metronome = {
  \set Staff.midiInstrument = "woodblock"
  \drummode {
    \repeat volta 66 {
      wbh4 wbl4 wbl4 wbl4
    }
  }
}

\score {
  \unfoldRepeats {
    \new DrumStaff = "metronome" \metronome
  }

  \midi {
    \tempo 4=155
  }
}