#130: It's Never Too Late to Become an Artist with Mickey Valen

Show Notes: edmprod.com/130 This week, Mickey Valen sat down to chat on the EDM Prodcast. Mickey Valen is a classically trained musician and producer who’s released on labels like CloudKid and Lowly Palace, and his song Meet Me (feat Noe) currently has nearly 60M plays on Trap Nation’s YouTube Channel. We start off with Mickey Valen’s background, looking at his late entry into the production world. He studied music in college, but he didn’t start producing until after school while he was working a corporate 9-5. We look at how he grew his production skills on the side, and how he eventually made the leap to working full-time on music. He got his start producing for vocalists, and he reveals how he built these connections early on without an artist project. On the production side, we spent a while talking about his songwriting process. Even though Mickey Valen is classically trained, he feels this hurts him at times. He discusses how all producers, no matter their theory knowledge, should approach songwriting. He also walks through his favorite distortion plugins, how he adds creative and background textures, and what his writing process looks like when working with vocalists. We also discuss how to embrace the difficult and annoying parts of being a producer, the pros and cons of moving to Los Angeles, and some of the hidden streams of revenues available to producers. Connect with Mickey Valen: Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/mickeyvalen Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mickeyvalen Twitter: https://twitter.com/mickeyvalenxy Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mickeyvalen/ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2tLI4kPsmsxQQv6zr2jbgt?si=VGDMZYLRR1iBJ4V3bC2nSQ