I'm afraid no one can give you definitive answers, because the path to "professional" sound is dependent on the particular song/room/players/etc. The best way to achieve the skills necessary is to DO IT. Experiment with your equipment, move mics around, play with the controls on that compressor, learn the strengths/weaknesses of your room and monitoring, read up on gain staging and signal flow - do all of this as often as possible until you start to get a "gut feeling" for how it all works. Then you're ready for the next stage: getting it right going in. Using the accumulated knowledge from your experimenting, learn how to get the sounds right at tracking, by using mic selection/positioning, other equipment selection, positioning of the players within the room, use of temporary/makeshift acoustic treatment to overcome room deficiencies. Don't ever think or say "We'll fix it in the mix/editing". If that thought enters your head when hearing playback of a recording pass, you need to go back and get it right. There are going to be lots of things you need to "fix" come mix time, even though you didn't notice them at the tracking stage - no need to complicate matters by keeping a track (or tracks) that you KNOW are going to need fixing.
