Trebel Music is a free download and play service that is coming almost exclusively to UNC Charlotte.

Trebel is an app created by millennials, for millennials. Offering college students all the music they want for free.

“College students are at a point of consuming more music than they ever will in their lives with minimal means to pay for it.  When a student is incurring tens of thousands in debt to cover school tuition, every dime that leaves their pocket is an important decision,” said Corey Jones, chief of product at M&M Media.

It is not a streaming site like Pandora where your content is periodically interrupted by ads, instead app users can listen to as much music as they want, interruption free.

The app utilizes an in app currency called “coin”. Through using this currency, users are able to download any of the songs offered on the app.

In-app currency may sound daunting to some, but this system has been tested and refined at previous schools to find an appropriate system of cost and reward.

When an app user downloads a song, they are rewarded with coin; in return coin is spent when they listen to their music. The more a user downloads, the more coin they earn and the more they can listen to their music.

While downloading a song, the user is exposed to ads, which play on the sides of their screen, there are no ads that interrupt content on Trebel. These ads provide monetary compensation for artists whose music is featured on the app.

The amount of coin that a song consumes depends on its current market value. Older songs will typically charge less than newer songs.  This amount can range from two through ten points.

The app was designed by a team of young professionals, consisting mostly of people with ages ranging from their early 20’s to late 30’s.

“We want UNCC students to download Trebel, download a lot of music, and use the Social features to crowdsource music discovery, share playlists, and collaborate with each other by sharing coins and sending each other songs and playlists,” said CEO of M&M Media Gary Mekikian.

There is also a large social aspect to Trebel Music. By clicking on the social tab, users can follow other Trebel Music listeners.

When clicking on a person that you follow, you can see the songs that person has been listening to and you can download songs from their playlists. Users can also send coin to each other, and can pool together their in-app currency to buy songs that they can all share.

Another feature coming with Trebel Music is that it brings all your music to one place. Users who also have songs downloaded through iTunes or other media players can find their songs in the playlists section of the app.

Trebel Music features millions of songs, from the top 100 to indie songs. News music is being added constantly, and app users can request to add songs for download through the app.

When searching for songs, users can search specifically for the top downloaded and played songs amongst UNC Charlotte users. There is also a search bar for finding music.

While a song is playing, the album cover will be displayed on a spinning disk. App users can interact with this disk to rewind or fast-forward their music.

Screenshot featuring the spinning disk feature of the music player. Photo courtesy of Trebel Music

The “Video” button in the top right of the music player screen takes users to the music video for the song they are listening to. This feature is available for any song that has a music video for it.

There are several other schools which Trebel Music will be launching at including: Utah State, University of Alabama, Boise state, Troy University, Ohio State and the University of California. The app may become available to other schools in the future depending on its success.

Non-students and graduating students can still download and use Trebel Music. However, the app is not being marketed to that demographic.

Trebel Music is currently available for iPhone, with work still being done to make it Android compatible. However, the Android version of the app will release this week.

An upgrade will be released for Trebel in roughly a months time. This upgrade will offer several new features. One of these features includes the ability for Trebel Music to identify people who share similar tastes in music to you.

To download Trebel Music, vist www.trebel.io/dl, or download it from the app store.