Name: Massimo Discepoli aka Nheap XP
Nationality: Italian
Occupation: Producer, composer, drummer
Current release: Massimo Discepoli's Inside Talk is out now. Released under his Nheap XP moniker, it presents his personal take on vocal house and dreamy electronic pop.
Recommendations: I have already mentioned Pigments by Arturia, a synth with immense possibilities; next to it I would recommend an acoustic instrument, any one, which allows you to concentrate on the essence of what you are playing or composing.

If you enjoyed these thoughts by Massimo Discepoli and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, and Soundcloud.

For an even deeper look into his work, visit our earlier Massimo Discepoli interview.



The views of society towards technology have changed considerably over the years. How would you describe yours?

I've always embraced technology, especially in music. Lately, however, I've begun to feel nostalgic for that period, before cell phones, when we weren't always connected, when we could be with other people perhaps in a rehearsal room or take a walk outside without knowing what was happening in the rest of the world.

We have somewhat lost the ability to live in the present moment.

What are currently your creative goals and how are technologies helping you reach them?

At the moment I'm working on various kinds of projects, one of them will even be totally acoustic (so in this case the technology will be almost completely absent).

On the opposite side, I recently released an album with my project Nheap XP, that is totally electronic (except for Natascia Verde’s amazing vocals); I didn't even play the drums on it, but I programmed them, having a lot of fun experimenting with grooves different from what I would have used playing in a more traditional way.

Generally, I like using electronic instruments for the possibility of creating synthetic, abstract sounds but also as a way of obtaining ideas to be developed, using various kinds of generative synths. Another aspect that I periodically come back to is that of using electronics as a way to create music in real time, therefore to be used in a live setting, while I’m playing the drums and percussions.

From time to time I'm experimenting with different solutions, but I haven't been able to find an approach that satisfies me completely yet.

How and for what reasons has your music set-up evolved over the years and what are currently some of the most important pieces of gear and software for you?

My setup hasn't changed much over time, centered mostly on the computer (besides drums, of course). Mainly the software has changed.

Lately I've been using Arturia's Pigments, with which I can create practically any type of sound that comes to my mind; I also use several sampled instruments, especially electronic pianos.

Then I use some MIDI controllers, and periodically I find myself using pads and triggers that I incorporate with my drums, in order to launch sequences and play sounds in real time.

Have there been technologies which have profoundly influenced, changed or questioned the way you make music?

Sometimes I’m using algorithmic generators to get melodic and / or rhythmic ideas, which I then develop in the most varied ways, always obtaining something completely different from the initial material.

I find it a stimulating way to compose, avoiding to always fall back on the same ideas and to force oneself to choose paths that usually one would not choose.

From my point of view, the three key factors which have driven music technology over the past decades are mobility, affordability, and (easy) usability. How important are these for your own work – and did I miss any?

They are all important to me, but usability is above the others: not in the sense that an instrument must be simple, but that it must be as immediate as possible, because there is nothing worse than having a musical idea in mind, and wasting a lot of time during its realization due to complex interfaces or unintuitive procedures and then losing the initial inspiration!

To these three key factors I would add a fourth, reliability: when playing live, it is essential to be sure that the instruments on which our performance depends are reliable and will not abandon us at the worst moment!

Technology is usually associated with innovation and progress. Are these also important considerations for your music? What is the relation between innovative tools and "innovative music"?

I always try to bring something new to my music, even if I'm not interested in “innovation” for its own sake. I prefer to listen to or compose a piece of music that is accomplished and has value in its own right, recognizable from other music, without necessarily being groundbreaking or based on a concept / technology never heard before (and I think very little music is anymore). I

Also think that "innovative tools" do not automatically correspond to "innovative music": innovative music, however difficult it is to make today, can also be created with traditional means, even with a good old fashioned piano.

Conversely, if there are no solid musical ideas, it may happen that the music created with innovative tools turns out to be little more than a nice demo for the innovative tools themselves!

Late producer SOPHIE said: “You have the possibility with electronic music to generate any texture, and any sound. So why would any musician want to limit themselves?” What's your take on that and the relevance of limitations in your set-up and process?

I think limitations are actually very important, otherwise you risk wasting too much time looking for a perfect sound or getting confused by the almost infinite choice of  sonic possibilities available, thus losing sight of the original direction.

Often, when I'm composing a new piece, at the beginning I use very simple and basic (but perfectly usable) sounds: if the piece already "sounds good" this way it means that the most important part of the work has been done, so later I can work on the choice of sounds (which of course often also leads me to make changes on the composition side, but the basic idea is there to stay).

Other times I instead choose to start from a particular sound (or from a rhythmic concept) and build a piece from it. In general, however, I tend to separate the sound design part from the compositional one.



The choice in creative tools can be overwhelming. Are there ways to deal with- and embrace this wealth and channel it to support your creative goals?

Here too it is important to set limits. For me it is very useful to choose some tools and to know them in depth; with software today it is too easy to accumulate a large amount of virtual instruments that are used in a superficial way, rarely going beyond the use of presets.

With just a few instruments (but whose functioning we know well) it is instead easier to find the right sound and not waste time browsing through thousands of presets.

I generally add a new tool when I really feel the need and I can't replace it (easily) with the tools I already have.

The sound sculpting capacities of current music technology are remarkable. So is the abundance of high-quality and ready-to-use samples. Which of these do you prefer and what does your process of working with them look like?

I like to use samples sometimes, both to get a new source of inspiration and to insert some sound that has different textural characteristics than those that exist in a given track.

In any case, all the samples I use are heavily modified and processed, making them unrecognizable from the original.



Within a digital working environment, it is possible to compile huge archives of ideas for later use. Tell me a bit about your strategies of building such an archive and how you put these ideas and sketches to use.

I have hundreds of ideas archived in my computer, ranging from simple melodic / harmonic / rhythmic sketches to almost complete tracks: sometimes I'm inspired to compose a piece of music that is not immediately usable, because maybe I'm working on an album of a completely different genre; other times I'm composing a track that could become part of the record I'm working on, but then the track itself takes a different direction. In both cases I'm putting the idea aside for possible future use.

Periodically I review the ideas, often after many years: a lot of them turn out to be crap. (laughs) Others instead impress me and I insert them into the album I'm working on, or inspire me to compose a new album in that style.

Sometimes I use old ideas as “raw material” for any kind of audio processing, putting them into other tracks as sonic textures, soundscapes, etc…

In many interviews I've done, artists have emphasized the happy accidents as a result of human imperfections and unreliable machines. What's your view on this and how does an element of surprise enter your productions?

I rely on happy accidents all the time, not as a result of unreliable tools (luckily the tools I use are quite reliable!), but caused by me, using unorthodox techniques and above all relying on chance, in order to question the work done up to that moment on a piece of music and restart the inspiration from a different point.

Production tools can already suggest compositional ideas on their own. How much of your music is based on concepts and ideas you had before entering the studio, how much of it is triggered by equipment, software and apps?

Sometimes I create music starting from a simple melody or rhythmic / polyrhythmic concepts that I first developed on the drums; lately however I’m often finding myself using melodic fragments created by generative software, which then I rework and form the basis for a piece of music (and a lot of times the original melodic fragment completely disappears from the finished piece!).

Other times, however, it is a certain type of sound created in my sound design time (or sometimes even a simple preset) which automatically leads me to compose a certain melodic idea which will be the basis for a new track.

To some, the advent of AI and 'intelligent' composing tools offers potential for machines to contribute to the creative process. What are your hopes, fears, expectations and possible concrete plans in this regard?

This is a very controversial topic and right now it is difficult to imagine what will happen.

It could be interesting from a creative point of view, to generate musical ideas that the composer can then develop. But my fear is that, with the rapid progress that is taking place, these ideas will soon turn out to be "too complete" and it will no longer be possible to know how much work the “human” composer actually did. There are already complete compositions created by AI, and presumably in a short time it will not be possible to distinguish whether they are works of human or machine generated and there will certainly be someone who will pass off these works as their own.

In the artistic fields it is very difficult thinking about a “regulation” of the matter (which instead will be absolutely needed regarding information and propaganda, especially politics, with the possibility of creating perfectly credible fake news with fake videos and photos)): it will be necessary to rely on the ethics of the artists who use these tools.

At the moment I have no concrete plans about it, other than to continue creating music as "human" as possible.

Technology has continually taken on more steps of the compositional process and "creative" tasks. From your point of view, where does "technology" end and "creativity" begin?

I think this answer is connected to the previous one.

I could say that technology is capable of producing materials, which then the human creativity can develop and organize, with the personal style of the artist. But with the recent advances in AI, this distinction risks becoming increasingly subtle, with the computer capable of learning and reworking a number of styles of more or less known musicians in an enormously shorter time than what it takes for a "human musician" to develop his own.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in tools/instruments you would like to see and hear?  

Personally, at this time I don't feel the need for new technological developments in music, in fact very often I feel like I'm only “scratching the tip of the iceberg” when using my instruments.

But obviously new tools will still be developed, and somehow they will entice me to buy some of them. (laughs)