?You will find that there are producers all over the internet that are giving their advice on what preamp, compressor, or multi-thousand dollar condenser microphone. This is perfectly okay, but you need to understand that if a producer has a favorite $5,000 microphone, he probably also has a nice selection of picks and the knowledge to use them. In fact, if you asked him which he'd rather give up, I have a feeling that he'd keep the right pick before a specific preamp in quite a few cases. Basically, experienced recording engineers take it for granted that home recording newbies don't know how big of difference picks make, just for example. It becomes second nature for an audio engineer to grab X acoustic guitar for X sound and Y guitar for Y sound. So before you jump face first into buying a

rack full of high end preamps and other recording gear, you may want to ask yourself what day to day knowledge the big boys have that they take for granted and don't talk about on recording forums.