Ferric SDK For instrument makers

Build the
instrument,
not the app.

L–1 is a free, open librarian on Mac, iPhone and iPad — one room for everything a player owns. One folder and one JSON file put your machine in it. Your hardware stays proprietary; the app around it stops being your problem.

Download the SDK Reach out

github.com/ferric-works/sdk · MIT · format v1, shipped

01The problem

The app you keep rebuilding

Every machine ships with a companion app now, and every maker pays for it forever. None of that spend is the instrument.

  • A librarian for Mac. Then again for Windows. Two codebases doing one job, both a version behind, both due for the next OS.
  • The browser tool at the browser's mercy. A security policy shifts, WebMIDI moves, and the editor your players bookmarked stops seeing the unit.
  • The yearly operating-system tax. New signing rules, new notarization hoops, new permission prompts — a quarter of engineering spent standing still.
  • The mobile app you never had the team for. Players live on phones. A second platform is a second payroll.
  • Hosting, installers, updaters. Software-delivery infrastructure, maintained by a company whose trade is hardware.
  • Compatibility tickets wearing support's coat. IT DOESN'T SEE MY UNIT — the OS moved. Your machine didn't.

Every hour on the companion app is an hour not spent on the instrument — and players don't buy companion apps. Ferric's trade is the room. Yours is the machine. The SDK is where the two meet.

02The integration

One folder is an integration

Drop a folder into L–1's HARDWARE and your machine appears — its own station, its bench, its lamp lit when the unit is plugged in, its patches filed on every device the player owns.

TEN LINES, A WORKING MACHINE 
HARDWARE/EP-40/instrument.json

{
  "name":     "EP-40",
  "bench":    "EP-40",
  "maker":    "Roland",
  "role":     "PIANO",
  "midiName": "EP-40",
  "online":   "CONNECTED OVER USB.",
  "folders":  ["takes", "presets"]
}

No linked library, no binary, no firmware change, no code. Presence is sensed from a mounted card or the unit's MIDI name — class-compliant USB is enough.

INSTRUMENT PACK · FORMAT V1 · SHIPPED
THE FACE — YOUR TOOL, AS BUTTONS

Add a face block and your machine's own utility becomes the station's controls: wells count what's on the bench, verbs run your script as buttons, and anything that writes to hardware carries a confirmation. 

"verbs": [
  { "label": "BACKUP", "run": ["backup"] },
  { "label": "WIPE",   "run": ["wipe"],
    "needs": "mounted",
    "confirm": "ERASES THE UNIT'S MEMORY." }
]

A machine that needs more — pad grids, slot maps, step editors — gets a bespoke built-in panel. We build those with makers directly.

THE FACE BLOCK · DECLARED, NOT COMPILED
03The standard

A USB-C port, in software

One standard plug. Everything behind the plug stays yours.

UNIVERSAL MATERIALS

JSON, plain folders, files the player owns, class-compliant USB and CoreMIDI. Nothing exotic, nothing versioned into a corner, nothing that breaks when a vendor pivots.

PROPRIETARY STAYS PROPRIETARY

The pack describes the machine — it never exposes the protocol, the firmware, or the formats behind it. The standard covers how your machine appears in the room, and nothing else.

THE FOREIGN LAW

What another program owns, L–1 may read, search and audition — never move, rename or tidy. Your players' saved work is protected in code, not in a document.

FREE AND OPEN

L–1 is free and its code will be open source; the SDK is MIT. A standard nobody can take hostage — the room can outlive its maker.

“A library that only knows its own shop is a walled garden with better manners.”

— the L–1 page, on why the door is open
04Start today

From spec sheet to station

  1. DOWNLOADThe SDK — the full format specification, working examples, MIT license. github.com/ferric-works/sdk
  2. WRITEAn instrument.json for your machine. Start from the minimal pack; ten lines is a working station.
  3. TESTDrop the folder into HARDWARE. The station appears, the bench builds, the lamp lights when the unit is plugged in.
  4. REACH OUTWe'll review the pack, list your machine, and build a bespoke panel where one is earned. [email protected]

Want to integrate with Ferric?

No license fee, no contract, no certification program. The port is already built — the door is open.

Download the SDK [email protected]

Ferric sells instruments; the library is furniture, and furniture is better with every machine in the room.