How to Use Your iPhone as a MIDI Controller in Logic Pro

What you need

• An iPhone — the controller. Nothing else to buy.
• NueCtrl — free on the App Store. A one-time Pro in-app purchase adds Max Mode (up to 500 Hz motion capture), unlimited faders, per-fader sensitivity and unlimited presets.
• A Mac running Logic Pro. Controller Assignments and Smart Controls are part of the application, not an add-on — there is nothing extra to install or license.
• One connection route — Bluetooth, the same Wi-Fi network as your Mac, or a Lightning / USB-C cable.

Part 1 — Connect your iPhone

This part is the same for every DAW, because it happens at the operating-system level before Logic Pro is involved. Pick one of the three routes below. If you want the full walkthrough with screenshots of each dialog, see the MIDI connection setup guide.

Option A — Bluetooth LE MIDI

The fastest route, and the only one that needs no cable and no shared network. NueCtrl advertises itself over Bluetooth LE when it launches.

1. On your iPhone, open Settings → Bluetooth and make sure Bluetooth is on.
2. Launch NueCtrl and go to Settings → Connection → Bluetooth MIDI, then tap Advertise so the phone is visible.
3. On your Mac, open Audio MIDI Setup (Applications → Utilities), choose Window → Show MIDI Studio, and click the Bluetooth icon.
4. Find NueCtrl BLE in the device list and click Connect. NueCtrl's status indicator will read Connected.

Option B — Wi-Fi (Network / RTP-MIDI)

Lower latency than Bluetooth, still wireless. Roughly 5 ms in practice.

1. Put the iPhone and the computer on the same Wi-Fi network — 5 GHz if you have the choice.
2. macOS: Network MIDI is built in. Open Audio MIDI Setup → Window → Show MIDI Studio, double-click the Network icon, click + under My Sessions and tick Enabled. Select NueCtrl in the Directory panel and click Connect.
3. Windows: there is no built-in Network MIDI. Install rtpMIDI (the free RTP-MIDI driver from Tobias Erichsen), create a session in it, and connect to NueCtrl from its directory list.
4. In Logic Pro, the input will appear under the session name (for example Session 1), not under the phone's name.

Option C — USB

The lowest latency and the most reliable route — around 2 ms — and the right choice for a take you intend to keep.

1. Connect the iPhone to the Mac with a Lightning or USB-C cable.
2. First time only: in Audio MIDI Setup, choose Window → Show Audio Devices, select your iPhone and click Enable.
3. NueCtrl detects the cable and switches to USB MIDI automatically. The port appears as NueCtrl.

Part 2 — Logic Pro setup

If you have come here from another DAW, expect to spend a minute looking for a switch that does not exist. Logic Pro has no per-port MIDI enable list. It takes input from every MIDI source macOS hands it, all the time. There is nothing to turn on, nothing to tick, and no "MIDI Ports" table hiding in a settings pane. If the port is present at the operating-system level and Logic was launched after it appeared, Logic is receiving from it right now.

Step 1 — Confirm Logic is already receiving

Rather than hunting for a switch, verify the stream. Move your iPhone so NueCtrl transmits, and watch the MIDI activity readout in the control bar's LCD display at the top of the window. Data arriving there is proof that the whole chain — phone, transport, macOS, Logic — is intact, and it moves every diagnosis that follows onto solid ground. (Depending on how your control bar is configured, you may need to switch the LCD to a mode that shows MIDI activity; the control bar's customization options control which readouts are visible.)

The pane at Logic Pro → Settings → MIDI — called Preferences in older versions — is worth opening once so you know what it is not. It holds input filtering, which lets you discard message types you never want to see, and the MIDI reset controls. It does not contain a list of ports to enable. If someone tells you to "enable the input in Logic's MIDI preferences", they are describing a different DAW.

Step 2 — Map with Controller Assignments

Controller Assignments is Logic's general-purpose mapping system, and it will point almost any incoming controller message at almost any Logic parameter.

1. Open Logic Pro → Control Surfaces → Controller Assignments… from the application menu.
2. Tick Learn Mode.
3. In Logic, click the parameter you want to control so it becomes the learn target.
4. Move your iPhone so NueCtrl sends its CC. Logic captures the incoming controller and writes the assignment.
5. Untick Learn Mode. Leaving it on is how people accidentally overwrite the assignment they just made with the next stray message that arrives.

The window has two faces. Easy view is a stripped-back panel for a quick one-to-one assignment and is all you need most of the time. Expert view exposes the full model: zones and modes (which let a single physical control mean different things in different contexts), value scaling, and — critically — the complete list of existing assignments. Expert view is where you go to delete a stale mapping, and stale mappings are the single most common reason a freshly learned assignment appears to do nothing.

Step 3 — The faster route: Smart Controls

For plugin parameters, Smart Controls usually beats Controller Assignments on effort per result. Open the Smart Controls pane for a track, select one of the screen controls, and look in the Smart Control inspector for the External Assignment section — it has a Learn button. Click Learn, move the iPhone, and the CC is bound to that screen control.

The payoff is not the shorter click path. It is that a Logic screen control is frequently already wired to several underlying plugin parameters at once, each with its own range. Learning one CC to one screen control therefore moves an entire coordinated set of parameters from a single hand movement — the kind of layered result that would otherwise take several separate assignments and several automation lanes to reproduce.

Step 4 — Record the pass as automation

A parameter driven by an external assignment behaves like any other automatable parameter, so Logic will capture your performance. Set the track's automation mode to Touch or Latch, start playback and ride the parameter with your hand. Touch writes only while you are actively moving and returns to the existing value when you let go; Latch keeps writing the last value you left it at until you stop the transport. Logic records the movement into a track automation lane you can then trim, curve or copy.

One Logic-specific wrinkle to know before you start dragging regions around: automation in Logic can be region-based or track-based, and a track automation lane is independent of the regions sitting above it. A Move Automation with Regions setting, which lives with Logic's other automation settings, decides whether track automation follows a region when you drag it. Set it deliberately once. Discovering it after you have rearranged an arrangement and left every ride behind is an unpleasant way to learn it exists.

Part 3 — What to map in Logic Pro

NueCtrl produces continuous MIDI CC from iPhone motion, so it pays off on parameters that want to travel — not on buttons and toggles. Logic's stock instruments and effects happen to be full of exactly that kind of parameter.

Smart Controls screen controls

The highest-leverage target in the whole application. One screen control can already be mapped to multiple plugin parameters with individual ranges, so a single tilt drives a coordinated move rather than one dial. Build the screen control mapping once, learn NueCtrl to it, and every future gesture carries the whole arrangement of parameters with it.

CC11 into Studio Strings, Studio Horns and sampled orchestral libraries

Send NueCtrl on CC11 (expression) and Logic's own Studio Strings and Studio Horns, along with most third-party sampled orchestral libraries, respond natively — no assignment required, because the instruments already listen to that controller for dynamics and expression layers. This is where motion control most clearly beats a mouse: a sustained string or brass line lives or dies on the shape of its CC11 curve, and a hand produces a shape a drawn line does not.

Alchemy's Transform Pad and morph controls, and Sampler

Alchemy is built around continuous morphing between sources, and the Transform Pad exists precisely to be swept rather than nudged. Point NueCtrl at a morph axis and the movement stops sounding like automation and starts sounding like playing. Sampler offers the same opportunity on filter and modulation parameters within a sampled patch.

ES2, Retro Synth and the vintage instruments

Logic's synths expose plenty of continuous ground worth performing — ES2's filter cutoff and its morphing controls, Retro Synth's cutoff and resonance, the drawbar and tone controls in the vintage instrument collection. Filter cutoff is the obvious first mapping and remains the best demonstration of what a real hand adds: the acceleration and the hesitation are the part you cannot draw.

Channel EQ, Space Designer and ChromaVerb wet and decay

Mix moves that read as performances. A slow Channel EQ band sweep across a breakdown, or a rising wet amount and decay time on Space Designer or ChromaVerb heading into a chorus, both belong to the family of gestures that never sound convincing when drawn as breakpoints. Ride them instead.

Send levels on a bus

The classic version of the same idea. Assign NueCtrl to a send level feeding a reverb or delay return and push the vocal into the tail at the end of each line, then pull it back for the next phrase. It is a timing-sensitive move, which is exactly why it responds to being performed rather than programmed.

Troubleshooting

• Nothing arrives and there is no port to find. Logic enumerates MIDI ports when it launches. Finish the connection at the OS level first — pair over Bluetooth or connect the Network MIDI session in Audio MIDI Setup — then restart Logic Pro. Because Logic has no enable list to check, a missing port is invisible until you look at the MIDI activity readout, which makes "restart Logic after connecting" the first thing to try rather than the last.
• MIDI is clearly arriving but the parameter does not move. An old assignment is almost certainly claiming that CC. Open Controller Assignments, switch to Expert view, find the entry using the same controller message and delete it. A conflicting or stale assignment silently wins over the one you just learned, and Easy view will not show you that it exists.
• The port vanished from normal use after you connected it. Logic scans for control surfaces and can auto-adopt a newly seen MIDI device. Once a port is claimed as a control surface, it is no longer available for ordinary assignment. Open Logic Pro → Control Surfaces → Setup…, find the device Logic added on your behalf, and remove it. Then re-learn the assignment.
• The movement is audible but late. Check the route before you touch anything else: Bluetooth runs around 10-15 ms, Wi-Fi around 5 ms, USB around 2 ms. Switching route is the larger lever. If you are already on USB and it still feels sluggish, lower the I/O Buffer Size in Logic Pro → Settings → Audio — that is a separate delay from the MIDI transport and both add up.
• Wi-Fi keeps dropping. Both devices must be on the same network, and ideally on the same band — a 2.4 GHz phone talking to a 5 GHz Mac through a dual-band router is unreliable in a way that looks like a Logic problem and is not. Disable Wi-Fi Assist on the iPhone so it does not quietly fail over to cellular mid-take.
• Bluetooth drops mid-session. Turn Bluetooth off and on again on both devices and reconnect in Audio MIDI Setup. If it keeps happening, move to Wi-Fi or USB — Bluetooth LE is the most environment-sensitive of the three routes, and a busy room is enough to disturb it.
• You performed the ride but no automation was written. The track's automation mode is on Read or Off. Read plays existing automation back and refuses to record over it; Off ignores automation entirely. Switch the track to Touch or Latch and perform the pass again.

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