Everyone is different and it's all depends on how they learn and their capabilities.
I tried teaching myself how to mix and used video tutorials but felt it lacked the teacher/ student guidance for me, no matter how many times I watched the clip, I just wasn't getting the sound I wanted and because I didn't have someone TELLING me your levels are wrong/ right, you're not using enough buses or sends are wrongs etc I was worried that I was picking up bad habits with each of my tracks.
I'm the sort of person that I physically need to be there and watch someone, what they are doing and then imitate or at least be able to ask questions and get answers quick which again video tutorials lack.
For me as a career options, I also wanted to know how to use the console for mixing which my uni decided not to teach us in detail (considering it was a Commerical Music course). So in my case, to perfect what I've learnt I decided to do a one on one music tech diploma course with London AMP as I didn't want to be in a class of 10 people trying to jump over each other to see the AUX knobs.
Practice does make perfect but you also need to know where you are going wrong and if you can recognise and rectify it yourself and then carry on with what you're doing but if you need guidance from a professional, then either do work experience or go to a music production school.
Hope this helps.
You sound exactly like me. I'm at uni at the moment and have watched loads of you tube videos but hasn't really improved me a great deal. I was only telling someone today that my mixes aren't great and if you compare them to the professional mixes I strive to be as good as, it to me, was like tasting a good stew, you know when you taste a stew that the stew tastes good, but unless someone gives you the recipe, how you gonna know what went into that stew, the secret ingredients. You could see the potatoes or the carrots and know there's some stock in there but until you watch someone make that dish and they say a pinch of salt, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, 1/2 a teaspoon of garam masala and then you get that eureka moment where you go, oh, that's what that taste was, how you gonna know?
I need to sit in a studio with someone who makes house music to know. People say, use your ears and practice practice practice but I can't see how random tweaking will necessarily guide you the right way, you don't know what you're doing? how do you know which tracks need compressing, which don't, which tracks need reverb, which don't? ok, you can hazard a guess, but that's all you're doing, guessing. I suppose trial and error will work to some degree but I'm like the above poster, I need to see someone mixing and mastering in the studio and practice as well. I learnt something I never knew at uni the other week. Notch Filtering I think it was called. Put an EQ on anything audio (I think it's just audio, cause everything in the box or synthesized shouldn't really need any 'notch filtering' doing as there shouldn't be bad sounds in there, but might be wrong) and you give the eq a very narrow bell width to isolate the frequency and you boost it a lot, then sweep the frequencies to find any horrid sounds you hear (you may need 3 or 4 on one track) and then when you hear anything bad, you cut it, bang done. Subtractive eq to remove bad sounds. The best way when you find a bad sound too, is to move the number down and try not to drag the eq bell itself as you might move the position of the eq when you move the mouse vertically down if you get me.
I'm struggling with synthesis as well, knowing how to get the type of sounds I'm after, knowing which oscillator wave type I need to create the sound I'm after. This is the research I'm trying to do at the moment.
I recommend college or uni. You also meet likeminded people who can give you hints and tips with what they're doing and critical feedback too on your song structure / mixes and which plug-ins suit the sound you're after maybe.
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