Daniel Bate, a grade 10 student at Elphinstone Secondary, is humming a new tune these days. It’s a musical remix based on a Myles Castello song, “What a Mess” with some of Daniel’s original composition in the recording. Last week the judges of the Nimbus Recording School Mix Contest awarded him first prize in their annual contest.
The 16-year-old wins a $25,000 scholarship to be given after his high school graduation that will allow him to attend Nimbus School of Recording & Media in Vancouver. His school also wins big – a new PA system from Yamaha Canada valued at $5,000. It’s no wonder that Elphinstone’s principal wanted to shake Daniel’s hand.
The contest is promoted to high schools across Canada, though most of Elphi’s teaching staff didn’t know Daniel had entered it, he told Coast Reporter. He likes to compose his own music using his laptop, although he also has eight years of study on the piano and was formerly a member of the school band.
“It’s electronic dance music,” he said of the music that he likes to make. “I love learning it.” Right now he’s working on his academic requirements but he hopes to continue with music after school. “I’d love to go into the field of production working with recording artists behind the scenes.” He’s not an up-front, on stage kind of guy, preferring to spend time making his own compositions.
“He’s been doing this most of his life,” said his mother, Kelly Foley.
The contest process was designed to develop the next generation of music engineers and producers. Through Nimbus’s partnership with Warner Music Canada, they provide the basic material used to create the final songs from three Warner artists.
Mike Schroeder, CEO of Nimbus, describes it this way. “Each participant in the Mix Contest was able to download ‘stems’ from three artists. These are from the original studio recording of the song. In the case of Myles Castello’s song “What A Mess,” there were 21 stems, including drums, guitars, piano, bass, synths, background vocals, and the lead vocal. The individual could then take these stems, chop them up, rearrange them, choose to use all or just some, or choose to add their own additional tracks.”
The judges included Bob Ezrin, who has had a legendary career as a producer, songwriter, arranger and mixer. He’s worked with artists such as Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd and Taylor Swift. Judge GGGarth Richardson, a Juno award-winning and Grammy-nominated producer and engineer, has also worked with artists such as Rage Against the Machine, Ozzy Ozbourne and Alice Cooper. Contest entries were evaluated based on qualities such as volume levels balance, clarity, technique and musicality – that is, does the mix have that special quality that makes it interesting? Clearly, Bate’s mix had it.
