H
hungovermorning
Dr. Caveman.
It boils down to this:
Do you WANT to learn how to record? Before you answer, understand that everything Chessrock said is true. You said near-studio quality (assuming you mean professional studio and not some $10 an hour bedroom studio). It will not happen on your first try. It will probably not happen for at least a couple of years.
It may very well be a waste of time and money...unless you WANT to learn and enjoy the process.
Most of us share the passion for learning this stuff, where we understand that failure is going to happen in the beginning - and we're ok with it. If that's you, then jump in and start learning.
If you do not want to undertake a huge learning curve and large expense in gear - spend the money at a real studio where your recording will sound good and you can focus on the music.
The whole process is also aggravatingly expensive. You spend money on stuff that you'd never even think that you would and then something breaks or you hear something you don't like and off to the sales heap it goes and then you hear about the next great thing that's the salvation of recording and have to buy it only to realize that you sold something equally as crappy and couldn't record for two weeks to get it. Phew. The whole love of it thing is the key honestly. I love the sonority of the instruments and trying to capture what I hear in my head. I consider myself at the "somewhat decent" stage of chessrock's hierarchy of homer recording suck and that took a very long time and a lot of money to get to. If you plan on recording for the next 20 years, go buy some stuff. But it's just a demo, gather some cash and go record somewhere. Bad studios are where I learned about expensive incompetence and it only fueled by home recording passion.