Quadio is a platform designed for college students so they can easily upload their music. Photo from Quadio.com
Coming up on their second anniversary in October, Quadio, the music streaming and social media platform, has reached college campuses all over the United States, including the University of Rhode Island.
The platform could be considered similar to Soundcloud and Spotify except Quadio, with its unique social media aspects, was established to change the way music is created and discovered specifically for college students, who make up all of its users.
Senior Harrison Dolan is one of URI’s students who actively uses this platform to put his music out there. For him, Quadio is up there in quality with other music streaming platforms like Soundcloud and Bandcamp.
The platform lets you connect with other college musicians, whether that means listening to their music for inspiration or establishing connections to collaborate with other artists.
Something Dolan really appreciates about this platform is how much they genuinely care about their artists. He feels more valued as an artist on Quadio compared to other music streaming platforms he’s used in the past.
“You can message the CEO of Quadio and the people that kinda started [the platform] from the ground up and they’ll respond and say they love taking time out to talk to the artists on the platform,” Dolan said.
When creating an account on their website, Quadio allows artists to select three of their strongest skills they want to advertise on their profile. These skills can range from an instrument they play to being a mixing engineer or a producer. This allows artists to find someone who might have a different skill set that they’re looking for to complete a project they have in mind. On Dolan’s profile, he listed drummer, pianist and guitarist as his strongest skills.
According to their website, the unique music platform’s motto is: “#makemusicmakefriends because our mission is to bring the best two things in life together in a way that is fun, easy, exciting, and totally free.”
“I’d say it is more friendly than and less robotic than Spotify or Apple Music even though those services have way bigger catalogs,” Dolan said.
As an overview, Dolan recommends using Quadio to really get your music out there as a budding artist.
“Don’t think too much about getting signed to a record label or a record deal,” Dolan advised. “One: that’s gonna be something you strive for and then when you get it, it won’t satisfy you.”
He also said that record labels can drop you and still own your music while making your schedule for you and that he much prefers to schedule events and releases on his own time. As a student artist, his biggest piece of advice to fellow upcoming artists is to “be your own boss because your music is yours.”
While Quadio is currently only open for college students, a plan is in the works to expand Quadio’s listening outreach to everyone.
“I like their desire to keep expanding,” Dolan said. “I like that they’re always trying to innovate.”
Any student can create an account with an .edu email account for free on quadio.com.