Nerve.kpe

Ladies and gentlemen! I proudly present to you...

NERVE.KPE - the ultimate Nerve Kore Performance Ensemble.

Special thanks to Steve Duda, this outstanding template which will transform your Kore into a whole new instrument is only possible because of his great openness to user requests.
He is still actively supporting this nearly 8 years old instrument, how epic is that?

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SETUP
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What you will need:

-Kore 2 software and hardware
-Nerve (updated to 1.2.3 or above)
-Reaktor 5 MUST be installed
-jonathan adams leonard's Kore Toolpack

This template is meant to be used in real-time with a midi controller, ideally of the pad kind. Our drumpad recommendations:

1- Arturia Beatstep Pro. All mappings fit within two pages (using Drum and Control modes), and you can use the internal sequencer for some epic multi-sequencing action.
2- Korg Nanopad2. Like above, the 2*8 pad layout matches Nerve visually, and although the touchpad has no use here specifically, it's just such a cool device to have.
3- Any old programmable 4x4 pad from your favorite pawn shop will do (m-audio trigger finger, korg padkontrol, etc)

Assigning Your Notes

Controlling Nerve is heavily based on midi notes. You need at least 4 pages of notes on your chosen 16-pad drumpad (or you can simply fit everything on a single 8x8 matrix pad). Keep in mind that Nerve only receives on channels 1 and 10.

Page 1: Triggers. This is the main page from which you play the pads. Notes 60-75.
Page 2: Chains. Here you can select pattern chain A-L. Notes 84-95.
Page 3: Patterns. Here you can select pattern sequence 1-8. Notes 48-55.
Page 4: Repeater. Here you can bring forth craziness. Notes 34-41 plus notes 32 and 33 for dotted and triplet modifiers.

If you don't have a drumpad, you can still play Nerve with your midi keyboard. Maybe label the keys for convenience, or you could memorize the octaves.
In any case though, do NOT modify the default midi note map in Nerve101.cfg in any way, or some parts of the template will stop working properly.
HOWEVER, you need to add some notes that are not already in there by default. At the end of the list, you will see Previous WAV, Next WAV, Pad Random and All Random. Assign the notes to 96, 97, 42, 43 in that order.
If you installed Nerve long ago, it's gonna say (reserved) below Next WAV, it doesn't matter, Nerve looks at the positions in that file, not the labels.

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How To Use
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First of all, this is almost as complicated as it's powerful. If you're not a seasoned Nerve expert, a read-up of the manual is a good idea.
It has many not so obvious features and hidden tricks.

Upon loading the .kpe template, you are greeted with the NERVE page on your controller's Control mode, and you see
a source channel with the Nerve Kore sound loaded. The actual Nerve vst resides in this kore sound.
This is because a) the template is gigantic and needed to be split in two and b) some control pages use assignments several levels deep on both layers.
As you are now thinking, it does indeed mean that you can't route multiple Nerve outputs to your DAW through Kore using this template.
If you ask me, this only means less clutter in your Ableton. Just make sure to use 0 latency mix plugins only inside Nerve Kore to avoid annoyance.
There are already 16 channels setup inside Nerve Kore and some fx buses for convenience. However, inside Nerve, the outputs are all assigned to 1/2 default, you can use some channels as buses.
I still suggest loading this template in the multi-out VST in case you want to use Nerve to sequence other sources.


NERVE page

It is from here that you can interact with your drumpad in Kore. Hold Roll then press a pad for a basic 16th roll.
Similarly, you can hold Select, Mute or Solo then press a pad. Press Rec to start recording real-time into Nerve's sequencer.
Press it again to stop recording and return to normal playback. If you're happy with your recording, press Commit to keep it. Otherwise, press Undo.
Everything that was recorded since your last Commit will be deleted. Or, hold Erase then press a pad to erase notes manually.
The Chain knob selects the sequence of patterns for the currently selected A-L chain.
The main controls for Nerve's integrated sidechain compressor are also found here, as well as Master Volume, Swing amount, and Repeat Send. Note that the compressor's ratio, attack, release settings are only seen by automation and not represented on the GUI.

Below the NERVE page are the four Pitch pages. Here you adjust coarse or fine pitch for your pads.
These pages also have extra functions. You can turn the metronome on/off, set the Global switch for the current chain, enable random pattern selection, and synced manual pattern switching.
<Pad?> will select a random sample on this pad from the same folder as the previous one. <All?> does the same for all 16 pads. < and > let you go back and forth in the folder.
Also: buttons for enabling the Repeater, the hybridize and randomize functions, and the C1 button. Press this to make Nerve trigger pads from C1 instead of C3 (useful for ableton drum racks).

Below this are the Chain buttons. These are meant for Kore Standalone mode, also useful for those who don't use Live. By using the kore midi player, this lets you sync your chain pattern changes. Gate, Free, Beat and Bar on the last Pitch page determines the behavior. Nerve's sequencer has to be set to gate mode for Gate to work properly.
Run enables pattern triggering from Kore, and prev/next pattern are also there.
Here you can also find VCurv and FixVel. These are useful if your midi controller doesn't have velocity curves or a fixed velocity mode.

Next up are Trim/Solo and Pan/Mute pages (mostly for automation purposes, you can't automate mutes with the pads) (I recommend trimming all pads to 0VU and setting the level with Kore's mixer)

Then you have your Sample Start, Gate, Compressor Amount (for the sidechain pumper), FX Sends.

At this point, the template wraps around and you're back to page 1. Here is the filter section.
Note that currently the Smooth knobs have no visual effect, but they do actually work.
The 8 Filter pages are at the beginning of the template because they also host the Patterns for pad 1-8. Nerve allows pad-independent pattern triggering (that's what the previous Sync button is for - it's either free or beat-aligned with retrigger).
Therefore you can quickly access pad patterns with your Control+1to8 buttons. Ctrl+8 then down arrow brings you back to the NERVE page. The patterns for pads 9-16 are at the opposite end, so you access them with Ctrl+1 then up arrow.

In the Nerve Kore control section, you have all the envelopes and all the LFOs - all parameters.
Access it by pressing Esc, Enter, Control. Return to the first level with Esc, Esc, Control.

Cannot currently be automated: pad groups, pad offsets (bummer this one, will update if it changes), and everything in Precalc: those are not real-time controls anyway. Can't fully get rid of the rodent just yet...

In my mind, anyone can load this .kpe and have everything working just like on my system, provided the setup is good, but if that's not the case, please notify me. I can also help you get to grips with your new favorite rhythm VST.

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FAQ
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**** ME!
-Thanks, you're welcome! I'm enjoying it a lot myself

How long did it take/how much effort was put into this?
-That's why I don't want you to go in there, you'll think I'm nuts. You'll see what I mean when using it. Access is DENIED!

What do you like the most about this template?
-How it simultaneously puts both Maschine and Komplete Kontrol to shame.