New music downloading app launched on USU campus

Utah State University now has access to a smartphone application Trebel, which allows free, unlimited music downloading, playlist creation and socializing between users.

The app, which launched on Sept. 15, was released to a few specific universities that are especially social media savvy and involved student life and interested in sharing music, said Gary Mekikian, CEO and co-founder of M&M Media, the company that created the app.

“We want to build a relationship with our early adopters,” Mekikian said. “The first release is always that you put (the app) into the hands of users and hope they love it. We hope to put it in (USU students’) hands and that they will develop a relationship and love it.”

Allowing young people to access all of the music they love was the company and Mekikian’s goal when developing Trebel. Mekikian has two of his own daughters who love music. He always advised them to not take music from sketchy sites, and knew that artists were hurt when music was taken without any payment. But the affordable options for streaming are slim.

“We got excited about reaching the young people, millennials, those still in school who might not have the means to pay the money for subscription services,” Mekikian said. “They need to consume a lot of music, but don’t have the means to pay for it.”

Andybody can download the app on their mobile device and then start building their music library, starting with their iTunes library, which will connect to the app. As users earn “coins” by allowing advertisements to play on the bottom of their screen as music downloads, they can get more music, and even eventually own songs.

The app will also show lyrics of the song playing, allow for playlists of all kinds to be made and shared amongst campus communities (USU will have its own) and will eventually have a DJ option, where users can “scratch records” of songs playing to mix them.

Bringing people together with similar music interests is a huge focus of the social side of Trebel, Mekikian said.

For students, a free way to stream music from an app could sound too good to be true. Music for students means a lot, and it could change the way they listen daily.

“A lot of college students listen to music, and we’re poor, so free music would be nice,” said Tia Torrie, a freshman majoring in family psychology and business.

The fact that Trebel also doesn’t need a WiFi connection to work could sway plenty of students, like Torrie.

“In certain spots on campus I don’t get Wi-Fi, like on the Quad I don’t get any,” Torrie said. “It’s weird. Having at least music would be nice.”

For Angela Johnson, also a freshman at USU, the convenience of a helpful application that works well for her could make the difference.

“I use Spotify all the time,” Johnson said. “If (Trebel) is anything like the Canvas app, I would use that. Also, if it could give me categories of music, like ‘here’s some good suggestions for study music.'”

Trebel provides top 40 lists, top lists that are being listened to at the respective campus of the user and users themselves can categorize their music, Mekikian said.

“The mission was to create a music app for young people so they can get it for free and have it in a safe and fun way,” he said.

USU students will have to find out for themselves if this is the case.

Students can find and download Trebel through the Apple app store, as well as find more information about the app at www.trebel.io or visit the Trebel app Facebook page.

~mandy.m.morgan@aggiemail.usu.edu