POUNDING
← Mobile MIDI
Pounding Systems
Documentation

AirPods control

If you own AirPods (any model with motion sensors — most are equipped), you can turn head motion into MIDI. Nod, tilt, and turn your head to drive CCs while your hands are free.

Setup

  1. Connect your AirPods to your phone the normal way (Bluetooth).
  2. In Mobile MIDI, go to Tracking → tap the AirPods chip.
  3. The connection status chip shows whether headphone motion is currently available.
  4. Tap START.

What gets tracked

Mobile MIDI reads the AirPods' 6-axis motion via Apple's CMHeadphoneMotionManager:

  • Head pitch (nod up / down)
  • Head yaw (turn left / right)
  • Head roll (tilt ear toward shoulder)
  • Linear acceleration on three axes

Each is mappable to a MIDI CC, note, or pitch-bend with the same filter/deadzone/scaling options as device motion.

Ideas for use

  • Live looping — nod your head to trigger a drum fill while your hands play a synth.
  • Filter sweeps — yaw your head from side to side to open and close a filter.
  • Dramatic expression — roll your head as an LFO modulator on a string patch.
  • Accessibility — drive MIDI entirely hands-free.

Keeping the connection alive

AirPods go to sleep when you take them out of your ears. The app will show the connection chip as disconnected when this happens. Put them back in and motion resumes.

Some AirPods models keep motion streaming even when not in an ear — your mileage may vary by firmware version.

Tips

  • Calibrate by briefly sitting still after STARTing — this gives filters a neutral reference.
  • Keep the filter smoothing modest — head motion is slower than device motion, so less smoothing is needed.
  • If you're using AirPods Pro with Head Tracking on the Mac side, that's unrelated — Mobile MIDI reads the raw motion regardless.

Privacy

AirPods motion is read on-device via Apple's public API. No audio is captured. See the Privacy policy.