yes, experience is the #1 thing.
diligence is the #2 . . . because I do know a guitar player who started about a year ago and was pretty dang close to playing vie's stuff. . . but he practiced 10 hours a day and droped out of school. . . now he's a drummer. . . been doing that for three months and he's probably the second best drummer in a christian indie band in the region. . .but he has no life
In your case . . can't remember where I saw this but tone deaf teen prom queens are going to want you to make them sound like celine dion. Because only world class studios have access to the studio majic box
the only way to make then sound that way is to tell them to do it over and over again until they do. . . I have heard that alcohol helps though. . . and I'm not kidding. . .
To me pro equipment is anything that doesn't degrade the sound quality. . . low noise mics, processors, soundcards etc. If it adds a lot of noise don't bother. . .
Pro sound also depends on the bands equipment. If they play on harmony guitars and cheap drums then you're only going to capture a crappy sound in the first place. . . . this is where I like my aardvark q10. If I have to record a band with junk equipment typically they atleast have ok guitars. I can run the guitars direct and through an amp simulator so I don't get bad tone and noise from the $50 amp they may have.
be sure to reference professional CD's and marketing studies show that you have to atleast get it as loud as commercial CD's because the consumer thinks louder is better. . . to an extent.
haveing had some friends make increadible recordings in my basement I don't see the need to sink massive amounts of money into the room. . . as long as it's quiet and has little or no reverb (you can add it later) don't worry about it. I think getting rid of hiss from a cheap sound card or rack processor is more important.
