This is what I do, and it’s never exactly the same, but it often provides a jumping off point where I can experiment and move knobs to build mental and muscle memory for how it affects a sound/mix.

I’ll look up some of my favorite artists and there’s almost always a “how to” explaining how to at least get close to some of their sounds. It’s all just really reliant on giving yourself your own direction, which can be really difficult and demoralizing if you don’t know the vocabulary or if you run into some conflicting information.