Certain concepts I'm having trouble understanding

[phrex]

How did you guys learn all this stuff? Dubstep is my first musical genre, I didn't move here from DnB like most other producers. There's only so much that experimentation, and then google, and then further experimentation can teach you.

i did one year, every day live jam sessions with a friend.

it was fun & i learned a lot. but be open minded. don't aim at anything, this comes later.
just do...

and be patient. don't do the error of so many others wanting to learn and do everything in 20 minutes.

good luck, and listen to many different things!
forget about the dub section here on DSF.
check out record labels as planet mu, dmz, tectonic, hutflush, hyperdub, punchdrunk, deep medi.... many more...
listen to other music too.. don't jsut sit on that 'thing called dubstep'. there is so much more outside that can influence you.

[deadly_habit]

learned it thru experimenting, reading books and mags, manuals, dissecting tunes i loved and learning techniques from all those.
forums like this are great, but you won't develop a unique sound with hand out tutorials and complete breakdowns. that and you won't learn the basics before jumping to advanced techs easily either. i'm sure if i was a noob producer now with the net i could produce a generic tune that cloned what alot of the bigger names do without any idea or learning exactly what i was doing or the terms/parameters or what tools i was using do.
start with the basics and go from there man.

[deadly_habit]

learned it thru experimenting, reading books and mags, manuals, dissecting tunes i loved and learning techniques from all those.
forums like this are great, but you won't develop a unique sound with hand out tutorials and complete breakdowns. that and you won't learn the basics before jumping to advanced techs easily either. i'm sure if i was a noob producer now with the net i could produce a generic tune that cloned what alot of the bigger names do without any idea or learning exactly what i was doing or the terms/parameters or what tools i was using do.
start with the basics and go from there man.

[tactful]

Thanks for all the commentry guys, I'm gonna browse the FL studio forum. My funds are a bit low at the moment, so I wont pick up the bible just yet. I'll download some alternate synths and try them out. Although I aim to produce 'dubstep', I'm a fan of pretty much all musical genres and my influences spread pretty far. It's all about the basics for me, learning to walk before you run etc. Thanks for all the advice so far, every comment has been helpful. I really empathise with you guys who learnt production before the existance of the internet, my generation has it so easy with learning pretty much everything.

[FTG150]

To give you an idea of the time involved (just for me personally).. starting with a very limited understanding of music and rhythym (elementary/jr high school percussion section)... Its taken about a year (4 months casually, 8 months @ 1-4 hours per night) of messing around with Ableton(and reading DSF production stuff/tutorials/videos) to get to a point of understanding where I can kind of do things intentionally and be able to recreate SOME aspects of a FEW commercially released tracks(albeit not as good sounding). Stuff still sounds amateur and really lacks the detail and variation needed(IMO) to be pleasant sounding to other people.... But the improvement has been pretty big and satisfying... good music = time x effort.

[nowaysj]

good music = time x effort.

good music = (time x effort)^talent

[tactful]

I like to think I have a bit of musical flair, but for me at the moment it's just getting the basics down.