Hello Everybody!

depends what you are talking about, if it's music, it's literally making a living out of it, and with that all the other stuff you mentioned, plugs, hardware, skill, will have already, or being in the process (never ending) of being taken care of.
 
on the other hand if it is being a professional clown, well then you have come to the right place, just have a look around the coffee house and you will see many fine examples, study it, and it will serve you well, and you will thrive (<<< the obligatory wink, i really am being sincere) 
 
the coffee house is not the place if you are looking for 'sincere', it is foreign to this place, unheard of 
 

'Professional' means belonging to a profession; getting paid for what you do, as opposed to 'amateur'.

Hi,
 
Nowadays, with the proliferation of everything out there, it is really hard to specify a good definition, if I may say so.
 
There are many fine folks, even here, that do a very professional job on their work, and they are not getting credit for it, and it makes a lot of the so-called "professionals" look really bad, and wasteful in an oversize environment, when (even) some folks here would likely do a better job and organize things better.
 
All in all, my take on it these days differs, and "professional" really means that you take your work seriously and that you work on it, continuously, and the public affection, or derision, is not an issue, or program that bothers you ... your work, and how you define it and work it, is the "source", and thus, saying that you are not a "professional" about it, is sort of like saying that you are an amateur.
 
I would never EVER consider Bapu, and many other folks in this board, amateurs in any sense of the word. They are professionals of the highest caliber and I would trust them with my work to add something and polish it, and still be happy with what they did, since they would not be able to mangle it up any more than I did!
 
Look in the mirror. Look at your work. How professional are you about it?
 
There are many painters that had 1000 pieces of work before anyone noticed. There are many folks that had 150/200 songs before anyone noticed. And saying they were not "professional" is not fair to the dedication they have for their work.
 
The same goes for my writing, and music/film reviews. I study these things forever and love them dearly and will discuss them a lot.

Professional can mean engaged in one of the "learned professions" (law, medicine etc.) and by extension to the ethical and businesslike aspects of behavior expected (and often enforced by law or rules) from such professions. In general that is not the primary meaning for musicians or tradesmen.
 
Professional in general should mean that the person or his work is being paid for by someone, sometimes it is extended to mean that the professional work is the sole source of income.  There is a general conflation between professional and expert, or even excellent. Often a person who makes a living at a task, performs it better than someone who does it for love (a amateur) or does it consistently for entertainment (a hobbyist) or does it with no particular commitment or consistency (a dabbler), or fabricates or exaggerates his ability to do it to impress others (a poseur). But, as anyone with any experience in paying people for work will soon learn, doing work for money is no guarantee that either the work will be of high quality or the worker will be an expert. 
 
In the marketing of music related goods and services the modifier "professional" is often, as you have apparently discovered, just hype. High quality musical instruments or software are generally preferred by people making their living at music, if they are making enough to afford the prices, but high quality work is often done with quite modest equipment. And owning music or audio products preferred by experts obviously does not make one an expert, any more than owning a scalpel makes one a surgeon. 
 
 

I see that you're Parisian.
See this mess of opinions on one single descriptive word?  Is it an adverb?  Is it an adjective?  What does it really mean?  Nobody is sure.
Welcome to the English language!   Hahaha. 

Hummm I think I'll make YouTube tutorials also