Trebel, a music app, is being introduced to Queens College. It allows the user to listen, download and play music offline, with no data charges, for free.
According to the Nielsen Company, a global information company, 66 million millennials listen to 44 hours of music per month each and 73 percent of listening happens outside.
QC was picked to access the app before the general population because the campus is a hub for activity. Trebel is currently at 3,000 colleges and universities and 25,000 high schools across the country.
“Trebel has changed the way I listen to music. Free music doesn’t hurt either,” freshman Lauren Pianko said.
Trebel’s musical database has thousands of songs, from current Top 40’s such as “Sugar” by Maroon 5 to The Fray’s 2005 hit “How to Save a Life.”
The download and play service allows the user to choose exactly what song they want and listen to it for free, as opposed to streaming services where you pay for music.
Users earn virtual currency by consuming ads, which are used to “pay” for playing music uninterrupted by advertising. This delivers fair compensation to the artist community, making the service absolutely legal.
“The more music you download, the more virtual currency you make,” Gary Mekikian, founder and CEO of M&M Media, Trebel Music’s parent company, said. “This makes it easy to continuously listen to songs.”
Listening to Trebel music doesn’t use cellular data, a feat no musical app has yet to feature. Once the songs are downloaded, you can play them offline.
“After my daily commute to QC, my phone battery is always dead due to my excessive use of Waze and Pandora,” senior Malkie Hagler said. “Since I made the switch to Trebel, my phone battery life has never been better. I have enough battery to last me through the day and even the drive home.”
Trebel’s goal is to make music sharing sites and torrent sites obsolete.
When using music sharing sites, the artist isn’t compensated; quality is poor and the risk of viruses on your computer increases.
“Trebel spells trouble for these illegal sites,” Mekikian said.
The app has exciting features, including displaying the users top songs downloaded or played on their campus, playing music videos, creating and sharing downloadable playlists with friends, reading the lyrics of the song playing at the same time and sending and receiving virtual currency to help their friends own songs.
“Music is valuable art. People that can afford to pay for a premium service should, but many young people can’t. Trebel fills a need for these listeners at a point in their lives when they can least afford to spend,” Mekikian said.
One of Trebel’s missions is to create musical communities around campus, where students can create their own playlists and share them with friends and classmates.
To download Trebel, click here.
