Photo provided by Trebel Music App
By Caroline Ackerman
The one constant about music is that there is no predicting what will come next. When bands pressed records in the mid-70s, they had absolutely no idea that in 2015 we’d be able to stream music from devices smaller than our hands. Now, in an age of online streaming and MP3 conversion, we have many choices when it comes to where we get our music. Students at UNR now have access to a game-changer in the music software industry: an application called Trebel arrived on campus in late September.
Trebel is a free music application that allows its users to download and own songs for free. Compared to Spotify and Pandora, Trebel does not charge their users for a premium membership; instead, Trebel supports its artists through advertisements. For every advertisement a user views or watches, virtual currency is earned. Users can then use the virtual currency to completely own the songs and download them to their iTunes or Google Play libraries, or listen to the music uninterrupted.
“The idea is to make it like a video game,” said creator Gary Mekikian, CEO of M&M Media Inc., Trebel’s parent company. Mekikian and his high-school-aged daughters Grace and Juliette designed the app together. “It’s for millennials, by millennials.”
The application is slowly being released to different college and high school campuses around the United States. UNR was chosen to be one of the first because of its diversity and student involvement. In a statement released, Mekikian said, ““UNR was chosen as a launch campus because it fits the demographic profile of a school where adoption and engagement are likely to be the highest.”
The objective of Trebel is to get young people to listen to the music they want to listen to for free while also paying the artist.
“A lot of college students have limited income and turn to MP3 converter sites and rolling free trials of subscription services, but these services are loaded with problems – terrible user experience, fake tracks, bad audio quality – just to name a few,” said Corey Jones, chief of product at M&M Media Inc. “We’re offering the best music download app out there that lets users pick and play their songs for free.”
The creative features on Trebel are endless. The application has a social media feature in which students can view what is being downloaded the most on their campus and see what their friends are listening to. There is even an option to share playlists with friends. Almost all the songs that can be downloaded can be played without Wi-Fi, and the application does not use any data.
“It’s ‘T’ and ‘Rebel,’” creator Mekikian explained, regarding the company name. The newest free music app is exactly that – a rebel. With the motive to provide free music to its users and compensate artists in a fun and creative way, Trebel is something music fans have never seen before. UNR students can download the free application by going to http://www.trebel.io/dl or searching “Trebel” in their device’s app store. Be sure to add “UNR” as your campus so you can check out what is being downloaded the most here!