So, I built a patch with Proteus originally in D Dorian (using the expander) and now realized I need to be in E Phrygian. Is there any way to “dial this up” with the Proteus/Proteus X modules or do I need to run everything through a quantizer? I don’t see that scale listed in Proteus but maybe I’m missing something?
Thanks in advance!
Your question is a subtle one. D dorian and E phrygian as 2 rows of notes are identical. The only thing that makes one or the other is to stress the correct notes to emphasize one or the other. So since there is no phrygian choice on proteus, the quickest solution in my mind is to transpose up a whole tone and quantize again with the same “white key” notes. You could use harmonee by bacon music to adjust up and any quantizer after to correct back to the phrygian notes, in this case all the natural notes. Your instinct to requantize is right on the money, but if the notes you select are basically randomish there may be little benefit in the juggling of notes, but if the melody is solidly dorian and you need phrygian then proceed to transpose and requantize.
The E Phrygian mode contains the notes E, F, G, A, B, C, and D, which are also covered by D Dorian (as well as C Major or A Minor). So, I think you can keep everything as is.
It is subtle indeed. Since Proteus creates random melodies, I am not sure whether it takes these kinds of note emphases into account. Does it?
I have toyed with Proteus, but not enough to know its tendencies. I suspect the melodies are sufficiently random that this is a moot point.
Yep ‘relative modes’, i.e. same notes but different key centre. This is a problem with modes, they tend to want to pull back to the scale they’re derived from. What you can do is add a drone voice on the note E, which will keep it sounding more Phrygian. Otherwise, when you’re generating random notes, it will probably sound more like C major or A minor.
Interesting! I do this a lot but did not know it was a thing, It just sounds better to me with a root drone sometimes. Now I know why.
Interesting! I actually would have expected that a random sequence can sound like any of its modes, depending on the notes chosen for this particular round. But IDK, maybe there is some music psychology thing going on, in which we prefer to hear the modes we are most familiar with.
If it is truly random, it is more possible for it to accidentally be C or A minor, as these fill our minds with many ways to be in these keys, even D Dorian just sounds like a II chord in C or a IV chord in A minor, its harder to make it feel like home The old method is to play 2 chords over and over that stay around the right notes. Like Am D7 for A Dorian, ala oye como va, and never sound the G chord or even the G note. For Phrygian the typical is I minor and bII Major like Eminor/F major, a touch flamenco which we associate strongly with phrygian.
Yep, this is the problem with generative music for me, if it’s completely random notes then it all sounds the same because it’s the same major/minor tonality. I guess the solution is to find a sequencer where you can set higher priority for certain notes, or switch between different quantisers/scales in a musically pleasing way (I’m not generally skilled enough for the second option!). You can try other scales too, harmonic minor works quite well but again, if you try to use any of its modes it just ends up sounding like harmonic minor, which sounds a bit dramatic. Melodic minor sounds terrible with random notes because you get some odd intervals. I haven’t tried any of the symmetrical scales like the half/whole diminished but those generally work better as passing scales, not something you would use for a whole composition. Interesting topic though…
In Meander I use fractal Brownian motion time correlated 1/f noise to give direction and coherence to modal music. Also, the interaction between harmony, melody and bass can be used to give direction. Fundamentally, Meander is built around circle of 5ths harmonic (chord) progressions and then fBm derivation of melody and bass from the chords.
I first developed Meander in 1988, but I am always learning more and understanding more about how music works. I then I forget it for a while 
Whereas not quite the same thing, Meander has several 1st order Markov chain presets for harmonic progression generation. These are based on probability matrices that determine what the next chord is likely to be, based on previous chord, with multiple choices and probabilities.
I don’t use any Markov chains in melody generation, but I do have parameters for setting melody to derive from the current chord notes or from the scale. In my automations, I switch these up to give more interesting generative sequences. I do the same thing in the melodic arpeggiator.
The Sckitam MarkovSeq is a general purpose probabilistic sequencer. It can handle the 7 degrees of the circle of fifth harmonic progressions (I-VII, 1-7) or the diatonic 7 scale intervals (1-7, 1st-7th).
I have used this to drive Meander chord degree and melody degree (scale interval) via the degree inputs for each in Meander. It is tedious though.
In general in Meander, each chord progression Markov chain transition matrix is a 7x7 matrix with a probability for the current degree to transition to any of the other 6 degrees or back to itself. In practice the matrices are 8x8 but one is a dummy row just to handle array indexing matching the degrees , such as I=1, II=2, etc.
So, in my attempts to achieve Phrygian it does seem that Proteus might “weight” certain scale degrees to ensure the general tonality–at least the root–because I cannot approximate anything that sounds Phrygian–which really needs its minor second scale degree–just by transposing/requantizing. Setting an E drone does emphasize the root, but can’t get that minor second. The patch uses a Medieval chant in Phrygian, so I really can’t “cheat.” I ended up using Slips for now on this patch. Thanks for all the ideas and discussion!
It is a fun topic.
You might look at SS-Modules MelodyGen:
I have used Proteus, Slips and MelodyGen in very similar ways. Each has its own strengths.
Yes–thanks for that. I’d not looked at MelodyGen for this (forgot!) but perhaps I’ll explore and compare. It’s good to have options! 
It does have Phrygian.
In JPLabs Improv you can set note weight just for this purpose.
