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

Lukas-Fabian Moser <[email protected]> writes:

> Hi Kevin, 
> 
>> 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? 
>> 
>> %%%% Fails %%%% metronome = { 
>>    \global \set Staff.midiInstrument = "woodblock" \drummode { 
>>      \repeat volta 66 { 
>>        wbh4 wbl4 wbl4 wbl4 
>>      } 
>>    } 
>> } 
>> 
>> %%%% Works %%%% metronome = { 
>>    \global \drummode { 
>>      \repeat volta 66 { 
>>        wbh4 wbl4 wbl4 wbl4 
>>      } 
>>    } 
>> } 
> 
> I'm not an expert on this, but if I understand the MIDI world 
> correctly, then 
> 
> - \drummode creates drum sounds from the MIDI channel 10 drum 
> world (where each 
>  'pitch' encodes a different drum instrument), 
> 
> - Setting midiInstrument to "woodblock" selects woodblock as an 
> instrument from 
>   the same category as piano or cello, in particular, not the 
>   woodblock sound 
>  from the channel 10 drum collection. 
> 
> So from this point of view, the behaviour you observed is not 
> surprising I think.

I think there IS a surprise, but I agree with you that the thing 
you described is not it. In my opinion, the surprise is the extent 
to which, if you aren't already familiar with how to "by hand" 
solve any MIDI problems that arise, Lilypond often isn't able to 
help you much. (Note I'm not saying Lilypond should be able to 
help in this way, merely that it doesn't.)

-- 
David