-Fuck presets, start making your own sounds. It might be hard at the beginning but it's 100% worth.
-Try different DAWs, maybe you'll find one that fits you better. This might be unpopular but after 4-5 years using FL Studio I just found out how much I like Bitwig.
-Don't be afraid to experiment with different genres: you'll learn a lot.

1. Buy FL Studios
2. Buy Vengeance Loops
3. Stack random loops together
4.
5. Profit

I've been doing this for almost 3 years. Here's the best advice I can give to people starting out that truly want to learn.

You can, and should strive to, be better.
This is my Golden Rule of everything I do in life that matters to me -- from production, to relationships, to medical school, to anything I care about. Becoming content with what you're doing or your skill level leads to stagnation. There's no finish line in this, only stepping stone goals you set along the way if you choose so. Want to get better? Admit you can improve and figure out how to.

Connect with people
Forums and reddit are great but I improved the most when I joined a group chat of people who, like me, wanted to improve. These are people I've talked to every day for the last 2 years and are pretty good friends. Don't be afraid to reach out to people on soundcloud/twitter/Facebook. Like a sound from a track? Message the artist. Is deadmau5 going to tell you how he did something? Most likely not, but who knows? He could. I reached out to a very well known artist (he's on this forum) several months ago and said I was going to be in the same city as he was and wanted to meet up and talk production. He agreed to meet up for a half hour or so. We ended up sitting in a Starbucks for nearly 4 hours talking about music/production/the industry. That's an experience you want to have and the only way you're going to get it is by connecting with people. Guess what he said was the most valuable experience he's had? Reaching out to an artist he looked up to.

Listen
The obvious, not-so-obvious, broad-spectrum piece of advice. Listen to fans. Listen to haters. Listen to what your friends and family have to say about your music. Listen to yourself. Try sitting down with one other person and play one of your songs for them. If you're not cringing, you're not being self-critical enough. Listen to music you love. Why do you love it? Figure that out. Listen to music you hate. Why do you hate it? Listen to people who are better than you. What makes them better? Listen to people who are worse than you. There's stuff you can learn from everyone, regardless of skill -- even if it's how not to do something. Listen to your sounds. Listen to your sample selections. Listen to your progressions. Listen to your arrangement. Listen to your melodies. Listen to everything. Fucking Listen.

absolutely underrated post, especially:

There's stuff you can learn from everyone, regardless of skill -- even if it's how not to do something. Fucking Listen.

thank you for this.

1. Don't worry about getting as many plugins as you can, instead find one or two for each aspect of production and master them. Only move on once full mastery has been achieved.

2. The internet is your friend. For every question you may have, there will already be 54835483975 other people who would have had it already. In addition, there are incredibly helpful information out there. Whenever you don't feel like producing, read. No matter how much you think you know, there's always more.

3. Learn to move on. Sometimes you are trying to fix a sound, a song, and you spend so much time on fixing it that you lose track of where you want to go. Do not be afraid to delete things, or to start over. A blank page, although daunting, can be very inspiring.

Quote from: Joseph on January 07, 2016, 03:50:19 am

1. Don't try to be original + Don't be afraid to steal good ideas from your favorite tracks (Good artists copy, while Great artists Steal)

This! I'd even go as far to say, try and recreate other people's tracks entirely. It will teach you a lot more than trying to come up with original ideas. Just make sure you don't carry on doing it like some people *coughzombycough*

I definitely agree with this, remaking full songs is great practice, and it's a method I have used periodically to learn very quickly! It's a good challenge to take up. Pushing yourself to figure out how to get something sounding a certain way makes you innovate and develop your own techniques. Even if you didn't nail the sound, you're still getting closer and learning more through experimentation 

1. Read the manual!

2. Read the manual!

3. I don't care if you watched a youtube video, READ THE MANUAL!!!

I tell people to do this alot. although i have never read it. Good advice though

1: Learn what all the basic filter types and wavforms sound like in combination with each other.

So many questions I get about sounds end up being the simplest things just because a person didn't experiment enough to know what a square wave sounds like with a bandpass on it.

2: Learn what everything sounds like with distortion.

So many questions I get about sounds end up being the simplest things just because a person didn't experiment enough to know what a square wave sounds like with a bandpass on it that was then distorted.

3: Learn every combination of every setting that makes a super saw.

High pitch spread, low spread, high phase spread, low phase spread, distorted, not distorted, a chord, an octave, an octave and a third. From my own observations, 70% of all sound design is just super saws. Learn that, and you're 70% of the way to learning everything.