I was invited to the Singtel AMPed event today which is held at Mandarin Oriental. Singtel AMPed is a music service similar to Nokia Comes with Music except that it is not tied down to any phones. It is a music service that you can enjoy regardless if you owned a Nokia, Samsung or a Sony Ericsson mobile phone. It is a free service for you if you are currently on 3G Flexi plans or you have the Broadband on Mobile (200MB) as a value added service.

Here are some of the key features taken from the press release:

• Interactive AMPed music portal with extensive search features: Customers can search the music store and browse for songs through the user-friendly interface with categories like ‘Artiste’, ‘Album’, ‘New Releases’, ‘Top Downloads’, ‘Recommended Hits’, ‘Shared Playlists’ and even playlists based on customers’ ‘Moods’. They can also access their favourite artiste’s blog and official website for the latest updates.
• Simple mobile application: Customers can download music easily through a specially designed user interface on their mobile phones. They can update their personal profiles anytime, access playlists from artistes and other members, and be updated with the latest music news.
• Auto-synchronisation of playlists: Playlists from the AMPed web portal or mobile application will be synchronised automatically in real-time.
• Chat function and album reviews, with direct links to social networking sites: Customers can upload reviews and comments instantly, allowing them to upload photos, share and chat about their experiences with other music lovers. They can even link their news to popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, offering even greater interaction.

Some more exclusive benefits:

• Select 15 songs to own and share every month. Customers can transfer them to various music playback devices, share them with friends and keep them indefinitely. Unused track entitlements can be cumulatively rolled over until the end of the subscription period.
• Meet their favourite stars and receive priority invitation to exclusive music showcases, autograph signings and meet-and-greet sessions up to six times a year, the first being the Lady Gaga showcase on 14 June.
• Access three full-length music videos, free of charge, on the interactive web portal. These videos are refreshed weekly. In addition, while customers are listening to their favourite hits, they can also preview clips of the music video, if available.

Similar with almost all mobile music services, the songs comes with DRM but you get to owned 15 songs every month. In another words, you can download 15 DRM-free songs every month. The file format for the DRM is of course WMA and the DRM-free songs should be MP3. I have not been able to confirm this as there are conflicting information on it.

The bitrate when you play on your PC should be 192kbps but on your phone it is 96 kbps. Again, I am unable to confirm this. Apparently DK and Nicole received different information about this as well. Nothing technical is said in the press release or the Q&A session.

*UPDATE* Music downloaded to PC is in 192kbps WMA format. Music downloaded to mobile is in 96kbps MP3 format. It’s the same for both DRM and DRM-free music.

Lady Gaga showcase is at 7pm tonight! Woot!

Here is a video of Lady Gaga making an entrance at Singtel AMPed:

Here are some videos from the Lady Gaga Showcase:

Press Release: Singtel AMPed
Facebook Gallery: Singtel AMPed