What exactly are you asking for, obviously the overall posts is very broad and along the lines of "how to mix/produce music"? If you want to learn how to do it here are a few of the things I learned from many years of mistakes.
1. While they say tone is in the hands, if you have shit gear, you'll get a shit sound. Be sure to have the basic workhorse starter kit of music gear and recording gear if you ever expect anything worth a damn.
2. Contrary to popular belief, good monitors in almost all cases is better than room treatment. I used to have a cheap 150 Watt stereo that I used for monitors, they were cheap and made of particle board. Still with no room treatment upgrading to a pair of BX8a Deluxe, I was hearing things in my mixes and pro mixes I never knew existed and finally began discovering where my shortcomings in mixing came from. Treatment is great, I know my room could benefit from it, but the differences between cheap computer speakers and actual reference monitors will be huge. Now if you have decent monitors and you aren't happy with your mixes or the image of the sound and think higher quality monitors will make a difference, you are wrong, you are getting either shit sound sources, have shitty room acoustics or lack the skills to determine what is wrong with your mixes, most people I know simply suck at mixing and will blame good gear as a result, but in reality, the reason they are having a hard time is usually a mix of all three issues (Source, Room Treatment, Lack of Skills). Room treatment is still huge and something that shouldn't be looked over, if you have good monitors it should be the next huge thing on your list, don't upgrade to a second set of monitors until you have made some treatment upgrades first.
3. Go back to the basis. If you have good equipment then getting the correct sound sources should be easier then you realize. Most here in the metal world love 5150 originals and Dual Rectifiers because they are the most used amps in the metal world, Mesa Boogie Cabinets both sizes are popular (mostly the oversize) as well as Marshall 1960B cabinets. More often then not, vintage 30s and SM57s are preferred especially for beginners because they are very forgiving and safe especially with a good ol' 5150. Over drive pedals like the TS-9, TS-808 or Boss SD-1 in front of the amp (with clean boost settings) for a tighter sound are used more often then not. Bass, for beginners, a Sansamp pedal like the RBI or PSA or even free Ampsims like Onqel BOD as bass sims are more forgiving than guitar sims when it comes to good tone. If you have a bassist that has a good stack like an Ampeg SVT (any model really) or in reality anything that isn't a cheap Behringer piece of crap, you can put anything from a SM57, MD421 or D6 on it and get a good sound source. Ola Englund has great guitar and bass tone tutorials that are worth checking out. Drums are a nightmare and deserve a whole other thread, check out the recording acoustic drums for metal sticky here and read up, most processing of acoustic drums applies to good quality samplers to, as for drum libraries, since I don't have any form of BFD I cannot comment but the easiest to learn on it Superior 2.0 or EZ drummer with the Metal Machine expansion, that sample replaced with Steven Slate Trigger using the library it comes with and some of the samples posted on the forum, you should be able to get near if not pro mixes depending on your skill. Ermz's mixing drums tutorial on the forum is a great overview of the basic theory of mixing drums, be sure to read that. Vocals I almost find the easiest thing, even an SM57 with the cheapest pop filter you can find at guitar center is probably as about as good as you could get but condenser mics like the AT2020 and AT4040 are bomb budget mics for vocals, I personally have a KSM27 now discontinued with a revamped version called the SM27 which is in budget price and love it, sounds like a slightly warmer more compressed SM57, though for vocals you really don't want low end and will end up rolling off a lot of low end before you de-ess and compress. Just about any major brand budget condenser mic will give you usable results and allow you to learn your craft as a beginner.
4. Again you got a brief overview of more common equipment in the metal world. The last piece of the pie is the interface, the popular budget ones are anything USB or firewire from Presonus, M-Audio and Focusrite. They tend to be the go to's for most low budgets around here. The Focusrite firewire interfaces seem to be more popular than some of the M-audio firewire stuff becuase they tend to be better compatible with firewire chipsets. My band used to use the M-audio fast-track ultra (USB) for backing tracks and demo recording and it was great, you will have to look around for good interfaces that fit your budget if you need one
5. Mixing is a craft that takes many years to learn, it takes even longer when you have horrible sound sources. Go over the tutorials I previously mentioned and always take some time to experiment around the norm to find your sound or what works for whatever project you are working on. Once you have good resources the mix almost mixes itself. Learn about basic processing.
6. Automation is your friend. Learn how to automate every parameter in your DAW, in case you ever need to use it. Volume automation and EQ automation as well as some FX automation will be the core of what you will need to do to get a better sounding mix. Learn how to use sidechain compression and multi-band compression, huge damage control for when elements clash.
7. Mix at correct volumes, too high and too low you will never get a good balance that translates well. Don't mix for long periods of time or while under the influence alcohol or drugs, even for me a single beer and I find myself having a hard time focusing on elements correctly. If you shoot out your hearing from loud volumes from being around drums or blasting guitar cabinets you lost your hearing for 24 hours and really won't be able to really mix right for at least 48 hours. In some cases at loud shows you can really fuck your hearing up for up to a week so use protection. If you cause yourself hearing damage and you loose high frequencies you will always screw up your mixes. I can always tell who has hearing loss, even certain big name producers and mixers because more loud mixes are smashed and bright as shit due to compensation.
8. Newbies overprocess their mixes, too much eq, sound will be thin, bright, harsh, squashed to shit with limiters and distort like hell as well as having over sustain in the drums from too much compression. Newbies tend to overcompress and that may be cool for djent but it turns everything into a white noise loud mess. There are many bands that have stems of each instrument on a solo'd track, some are on youtube and are worth checking out. Lamb of God comes to mind even though their sound is weird but it is worth the study.
9. Realize grappling mixing takes time, while I encourage experimentation, don't do things that are "unprofessionally" unorthodox such as signal chains that you shouldn't do. Those things tend to happen later after you pick up experience which will take a lot of time and once you start understanding how each element effects the sound, then start putting together things in more odd ways. Keep to your basics, most likely the gear isn't shit its you, ask questions on the forums, study and realize this takes time to learn and master. Don't over think yourself to and you will be fine.
