Everything on its own sounds good, but when I put them all together it sounds bad.
What is the skill I'm missing called and how do I learn it?
Is it a matter of picking better instruments or assembling them better?
#Help me
brave atlas
river mantle
Little bit of column A, mostly column B. This is what mixing is all about
Basically you have this entire spectrum to fit your instruments in. This is the LMMS' equalizer's visual component
Instruments (save for noisy ones like snare drum) don't generally utilize the entire spectrum, instead they produce a tone at a frequency range and the timbre of the sound is determined by what kinds of overtones it produces. For example, here's a sine wave. Notice zero overtones
Here's a saw wave
If you've got instruments that generally occupy similar frequency ranges, what you can do is give one instrument more space in a certain frequency range. For example, if I had two of these saw wave instruments in a similar register, I could cut the overtones of one a bit and boost its fundamental, and cut the fundamental of the other and boost its overtones
Generally the lower you go, the more you have to worry about this. This is why people usually sidechain bass drum and kick. The idea is that whenever the kick plays, the bass frequencies of the bass duck out of the way
In your example, you've got so much going on in the same frequencies. You haven't sidechained your bass to the kick, and the rest of your instruments are all living in the low mid frequencies, while none of them really utilize the higher frequencies
For example, there is no reason the lead has low frequencies in the same range as the pads, and you could boost its highs to help it stand out
You can overdo this, especially in the mid (maybe like 2kish) range and highs, but your ears are your best friends here. Fiddle around until it sounds good
There are visual helpers, such as SPAN, which I would grab. It's not a good idea to mix based on visuals, but you can use it to see if there's something going on that you missed
somber skiff
Jernemies explanation was very good. I want to add, however that the frequency spectrum is not the only dimension you can use to your advantage in the mix. Another variable you can tweak is panning, for example.
Not only do you have space to spread out your instruments between the lower and higher frequencies, but you also have space between left and right. spreading the elements of your song in this sense may make the mix less muddy when you have several instruments conflicting for the same space in your EQ.
I like to think that mixing is kinda like tetris. You have all these different pieces, but you only have some much space, and in this case, so much information you can feed to the listener in any given time. You have to make use of the space you are given appropiately if you want to fit more things in your song.
brave atlas
sweet, sweet help