L–1 · Library Free · Beta testing

Every sound
you have,
one room.

The interface for your whole sound library — tap anything to hear it, deal a random handful when you're stuck, and send what you find straight to the machine that plays it. Everything stays as plain files you own.

Join the beta testing Why it exists
01Why it exists

Hunting for a sound kills the idea

You know the one you want is in there. Twenty minutes later you've opened nine folders, auditioned forty things, and lost whatever you sat down to make. The size of a library was never the problem — not being able to move through it is.

So L–1 is built for speed and for luck. Tap anything to hear it and tap again to stop. Filter a whole shelf down to one machine's voice with a single tap. And when you don't know what you're looking for, DEAL pulls a random handful out of the aisle you're standing in — the crate-digging move, which is how most good ideas actually start.

What you like goes in the RING as you dig, and BUILD KIT lays it down as sixteen numbered pads ready to play. Star something and it gets a real yellow Finder tag, so it turns up in Spotlight too. Open a patch and it goes straight back to the synth that made it. Finding and using are the same motion.

Underneath, it's a shelf and not a leash. No database, no index, no proprietary container: rename in Finder, refile in Finder, back it up in Finder — L–1 reads the folder as it stands and never argues with it. If L–1 vanished tomorrow every file would still be exactly where you left it.

“Loading is not keeping: the sound arrives, the faders are yours, and SAVE is still how it becomes one of your own.”

— the L–1 field manual
02Heritage

In the spirit of the crate

INSPIRED BYThe card catalog · the record crateEVERY LIBRARY AND RECORD SHOP SINCE

The best interface for a thousand sounds was invented by librarians and perfected by record shops. L–1 keeps the crate's manners — and gives it reach the shop never had.

WHAT STAYS
  • Aisles you walk, drawers you pull, spines you read
  • Digging — and the lucky pull: DEAL is a random handful
  • One drawer per machine, labeled in plain words
  • A star you can see — a real yellow tag, in Finder too
WHAT THE PHONE ADDS
  • One shelf on every device you own, carried by iCloud
  • Tap to audition, build a kit of sixteen from the ring
  • Hand a patch back to the machine that made it
  • No database, no lock-in — plain folders, plain files, forever

Not a re-creation — a continuation. If you love the hardware, you'll feel at home here; learn here, and the hardware will feel like home too.

03The field manual

Dig. Ring. Kit.

The shelf is a real folder

FERRIC LIBRARY in iCloud Drive — plain folders, plain files. Rename or refile in Finder and L–1 reads the folder as it stands. When iCloud is out of reach it falls back to a local folder, and the lamp says so.

Digging

Tap a sound to hear it; tap again to stop. DEAL pulls a random handful when you don't know what you want. The RING is the crate you fill while digging, and BUILD KIT lays it down as sixteen numbered pads — for the P–16, or the real 404.

A take is a folder

When an instrument prints a take it writes the sound, the line you played, and the recipe that made the sound — one folder, three ordinary files. The MIDI still drags into your DAW; the patch still opens in the synth. The folder groups them, it does not seal them.

Keeping

A star is a real Finder tag, coloured yellow, visible in Finder and Spotlight. OPEN IN J–17 hands a patch back to the synth that made it; OPEN IN D–65 hands a rig back to the amp — the verb only appears when the machine is on this device.

The manual draws the app rather than describing it — a wall of prose about a thing you're looking at is the least useful shape teaching can take.

04How it's used

The desk organises; the phone digs

  1. BROWSEThree sections — LIBRARY is the shelf you dig, INSTRUMENTS is what the Ferric apps printed, HARDWARE is what your machines made. Search only ever searches where you stand.
  2. AUDITIONTap to hear, tap to stop. Cloud sounds pull down and play the moment they land.
  3. ORGANIZEStar it, deal a handful, fill the ring, build a kit. Any folder you add becomes an aisle.
  4. HAND IT OVERSend to the crate for right now, or open a patch in the machine that made it. Start a song from a form — a name, an artist, a shape, and nothing else.
05In the kit

The kit's shared memory

WHO PRINTS

Every machine gets its own drawer — J–17 patches and takes, D–65 rigs, P–16 kits, T–6 forms. The shelf can hand you a sound, and can never change or remove one you have.

EVERY DEVICE

One shelf on Mac, iPhone and iPad. The desk is a big resizable librarian; the phone is a quick portrait digger. Apple carries the folder; L–1 never syncs anything itself.

THE HARDWARE

A machine is a folder — drop a JU-06A pack into HARDWARE and its patches, chords and patterns appear. Build a kit and carry it to the 404 on its own SD card.

THE SONGS

Forms are song shapes with their guides beside them. START strikes the folder, copies the template, writes the tempo — and the pocket demo tape carries your newest bounces to the phone.

No Audio Unit, on purpose — L–1 is furniture, not an instrument. It makes no sound of its own.

Free. The kit's front room.

The shelf is yours, not ours — plain files in your own iCloud. No account, no lock, nothing to subscribe to.

FREE ON THE APP STORE
IPHONE IPAD
Free, forever. No ads, no in-app purchases, no account.
FREE · ON THE DESK TOO
MAC APP
Free on the Mac as well, same as the app.

Free at release, and free to test right now — leave your email and we'll send you a build.

Free TestFlight invites · release day too · unsubscribe any time

Next on the bench P–16 Pocket sampler Sixteen pads, eight patterns, and everything resamples.