i wouldn't recommend going straight to the studio. the guitarist i'm jammin with now has done studio work and said it averaged 7 hours per song. unless you can play songs perfectly in the first or second try, its going to take a while and cost out the ass. what i use is the Fostex VF160EX 16 Track.
Features:
* Internal 40GB E-IDE Maxtor hard drive
* Built-in CDR drive
* Total of 16 tracks
* 8 virtual track
* 40GB hard disk
* 8 mic inputs
* ADAT optical I/O
* Fader Pairing
* Mastering Effects
* Channel Solo
* BPM delays 2 - XLR channel ins; 2 - 1/4" TRS send/return; ADAT; S/PDIF; MIDI; 2 - 1/4" monitor jacks; 1/4" stereo headphone jack; 1/4" jack - AUX send (TIP: send 1/RING: send 2); RCA out (L, R); 1/4" footswitch jack
* 60mm faders for all 16 channels
* 3-band EQ with parametric mid and hig
* Master EQ
* Channel and master compressors
* 2 effect sends and 2 aux sends per channel
* 99 mix scene memory
its cheaper than the studio and you can do everything yourself.
have you gotten a metronome yet?