You can get good or bad results with a Roland digital 8-track. That's not necessarily what makes the difference.

The biggest difference between a good studio and a typical home recording setup is usually the room acoustics. Proper room treatment isn't cheap, and bad room acoustics can't be tweaked with electronic processing, whatever anyone else tries to tell you. That applies to the tracking room and the mixing room, whether or not they are the same, and ideally they are different rooms because they have different requirements.

There's other factors too:
- the engineer's ears
- the engineers musical experience
- the microphones and monitoring speakers

If you get the chance, why no go along with your friend to his studio session and watch the session, ask questions and try to learn as much as you can - then you may be able to make even better recordings with your own kit.

I have recorded stuff at home and in a studio. I must say a big primary reason for using a studio was the record label attached to it - the advantages of distribution, review copies sent to magazines and broadcasters (and taken notice of) etc. But for me the advantages also included: another pair of ears; a more experienced engineer; better editing equipment.

Anahata