Me? I spent hours experimenting and practicing. The only time I EVER use a youtube video, which in the main waste hours of your life, is for a specific query. Like - how to do X, and I can't work it out myself. I zip off to youtube, or often google with real words, and once I find where the menu is hidden or some strange routing I didn't realise was needed, I get back to learning it for myself.
I was around when music technology started to be delivered by colleges, and taught it for a long time.
College courses, for the large part, could be excellent, but are messed up by people who really have no interest, but get equal access to the kit and studio time. They usually involve recording modules, and to get the most out of these, you need access to decent musicians. If you find you are with a bunch of dead head metal addicts with no musical ability you are stuck. If your production course is a high level, not general education course then you can gain an awful lot more, but again - studio time will be precious. Less idiots of course, because they are all paying for the course with real money, not the tax payers.
Now the tricky part - learning styles. Many different types, and I reckon this is probably the real decision maker. Some people learn by doing it different ways.
Me - I learn best from touching, fiddling, experimenting and NOT from somebody telling me, showing me, showing me power points. I dislike learning in public, I need to do it privately. I learn quickly from actually doing the job. I pick up manual skills reasonably quickly - but best when I already know how to do them, by having done decent research, and then putting the knowledge to the test for real.
Other people MUST go on a course. They cannot learn for themselves. They must have things explained in words, then diagrams - some MUST write it down or it doesn;t sink in.
Some folk MUST have their learning in their chosen style or it doesn't stick. Others still learn, but slowly.
Some can vary their learning speed, others cannot.
Some cannot learn without a thorough understanding of the science and process in their heads first. Others learn this bit by bit as required.
We're all different, but courses should be designed for either particular groups, or generic enough to bore everyone equally. This is what colleges do. Teach everyone at the same time, averagely. NOT the teachers fault in many cases, simply not enough time to do it properly.
I go on lots of very technical and deep courses, and while people are queuing up to do the flashy stuff, I just watch that, and join in 100% with the real dull stuff the others ignore, because I get more time with the kit, and can talk to the instructors. On a recent studio camera course, the younger ones are all running around with Steadicams attached to themselves, while I am learning how to gas up a studio ped and mount a box lens on the camera. Two weeks later I spend three says in the studio on a decent fee using these new skills as if I've been doing them for years. Nobody would have paid me to do wobblycam with a Steadicam. Same thing with TV sound - all the music studio experience matches what they do, bar a bit that's totally different - and that is what I want training on.
Youtube video from the manufacturers might appear a bit dull, but are designed to appeal a bit to every person's learning style. The dreadful home user or enthusiast youtube videos we laugh at are because they appeal to just that persons learning style - which invariably in the bad ones, makes huge assumptions about the viewer and either insults them or swooshes over their heads.
If you are considering a course you need to do homework. If it's a college course say starting September, then ask if you can go in for a day as a fly on the wall to see if what it is is what you need. Most decent colleges will allow this. Expensive let's use studio downtime for training courses will not. So ask for ex-student comments or perhaps contact info for people who have done it before and ask them.
Sorry this went on - but many courses are rubbish, with just a few gems - and you must match your needs to their offer.
