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Hal Leonard Releases First Two Music Apps Based on Best-Selling MusicPro Guides Series
Hal Leonard’s best-selling book and DVD series MusicPro Guides brings together the most experienced authors in the music industry to give established and aspiring music professionals quality instruction that yields professional results. Last fall, Hal Leonard re-launched its MusicPro Guides YouTube channel (youtube.com/musicproguides), which streams the high-quality audio-visual media that accompanies its books or actual excerpts from its DVDs. It’s been a huge success, reaching thousands of subscribers and reaching 1.5 million views.
And now, MusicPro Guides goes mobile. Hal Leonard has released its first two free MusicPro Guides iPhone apps featuring cornerstone authors Bobby Owsinski and Moses Avalon, with an app from Bill Gibson, author of the highly successful Hal Leonard Recording Method, to follow soon.
“We are releasing these apps as part of our commitment to have MusicPro Guides available in every form that musicians use,” says John Cerullo, publisher for Hal Leonard Books. Watch for more MusicPro Guides apps in the near future.
Bobby Owsinski’s Delay Genie
In less than one second, Delay Genie calculates to the millisecond the exact amount of delay for any live venue setup and/or any recorded musical setup. The “Studio” tab replaces the delay chart in many recording studios that shows delay times for drums and vocals. Tap your BPM or enter it manually, and the app displays 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, and 1/64 note time increments, plus their respective triplet and dotted note companions. Just set your effects box to the number displayed on the app. The “Live” tab saves live mixing engineers the agonizing math required to suss out a concert venue. Enter room measurements, and the app displays delay time between the stage and speaker cabinets. It also accounts for differences in temperature that can affect live delay times.
Bobby Owsinksi, creator of the app, says, “I wanted to design an app that I would use myself. Setting delay times, especially triplets and dotted notes, is vitally important to the mixing process, and the Delay Genie helps a mixer do this job very easily. What’s more, the price is right (free)!”
Bobby Owsinski is a music producer/engineer and best-selling author of over a dozen books including the new second edition of Music 3.0: A Survival Guide for Making Music in the Internet Age (Hal Leonard Books).
Moses Avalon’s MyRecord Deal
MyRecord Deal is a mobile app version of the MARC (Moses Avalon Royalty Calculator), which music business professionals and educators have been using for over a decade. It calculates the profits and losses generated by virtually any US record deal, offering information on how much musicians actually make on record sales and the actual “penny rate” of each single or album. It‚s a tool for both serious music professionals looking to budget a production and for anyone curious about how much a hit song is actually worth.
MyRecord Deal also comes with an in-app help book that explains record label accounting procedures, how labels calculate royalties, and how to negotiate effectively with a label to get the best deal for the artist.
“This app will do two things: For those signed or signing to a label deal, it will give you transparency both in money owed and how to negotiate a better deal,” Moses Avalon, creator of the app, explains. “For those doing the DIY thing, it will allow you to accurately budget your recording and touring so that you don’t overspend. For many, an App like this is nothing short of a truly liberating experience.”
Moses Avalon is a top music business consultant, artists‚ rights advocate, and best-selling author of music business texts such as Confessions of a Record Producer and 100 Answers to 50 Questions on the Music Business.
Download the apps for free: itunes.apple.com/us/artist/avalon-apps/id449250300
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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