One thing that never gets stated enough (possibly because it might be impossible to state it enough... I never stop saying this, though, so I'm sure it's getting annoying all the same) is that tinkering and experimenting is never a bad thing. Take a notch, boost or cut the fuck out of it, and sweep it around. Repeat. Obsess. Experiment with boosting a frequency and then cutting the frequency one octave above it (double its frequency), two octaves above it, a fifth above it, whatever. Send that notch to a new track and compress the fuck out of it. Whatever. These are very good programs, but (just as there are things that you can only learn with them) there are things that you can't learn from anything but being obsessive-compulsive and going for days without sleep, food, sex, or social contact...
...Well, maybe kick things down a notch if you must, but you get the point.
Jeff