Use an arpeggiator plugin but alter its "Gate" and "Swing" parameters to generate complex, bouncy patterns from simple static chords.

The "Boneliest MIDI": Unpacking the Haunting Sound of Internet Sadness

Forget major scales. Forget natural minor. You will compose using the Locrian mode or simply a Whole-tone scale tuned down 50 cents.

Bonely One is a piece of music created specifically to accompany fan-made combat scenarios. The title is a play on Undertale's canon character Papyrus and his "bonely" (lonely) status, combined with intense final-act music. The track is recognized by its: Typically over 150 BPM.

The "boneliest midi," therefore, is not a physical device. It is an aesthetic.

One anonymous producer told me over Discord: "People think sad music needs a human voice. They're wrong. The saddest sound is a machine that doesn't know it's sad, trying its best to play a lullaby. That's the boneliest midi."

arrangement of "Bonetrousle," the iconic theme of Papyrus from the game

: Lacking "body" or low-mid frequencies, often used to describe FM synthesis or simple pulse waves.

It reminds us that computers, for all their power, do not feel. And that absence of feeling, when played back through speakers, sometimes sounds more like our own loneliness than any expensive recording ever could.