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

[Kevin Cole]

On Fri, Jun 12, 2026 at 5:25 PM Knute Snortum <ksnor...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jun 12, 2026 at 1:11 PM Kevin Cole <dc.l...@gmail.com> 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
  }
}