welding 101

If you understand what "the sizzle" sound is it helps considerably.

What that sound is, is the gap that is caused from your wire speed being slower than the arc burns the filler wire back.
Meaning if your "sizzle" is slow, it is because the arc is burning back the filler wire faster than it can enter the puddle.
If you turn your wire speed up, it will make your "sizzle" faster.

The sweet spot is found when you have the least amount of splatter coming from your welds.

There are several pros and cons to this however.
Keep in mind that the more "filler" you add to your bead, the more warping will occur.

There is an old welding video on warpage made by Disney of all companies. It explains that the "pull" that occurs is actually from the heaped up bead, just as much as the heat itself.
Here is the video. It is very cool and spot on in explanation.

Hope this helps a bit to aide in your technique. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vuGlcbDwKY

An easy way to overcome the warpage scenario is to tack your project in several places before going ape **** welding it off. On bigger projects you can weld part way on one area move over to another and sort of zig zag your way around the project until you hit all your areas. Again it should be tacked in several places before hand.