Some things to think before the recording session
Please take the time to read these notes, they will give you some idea of how to save money at a recording session (OK well on how to spend wisely and not end up wasting a fortune)
Copyright
Record companies and publishers stealing songs is not the most prevalent crime the police have to deal with, although that doesn't stop writers getting paranoid about someone out there stealing the chorus of their soon-to-be-worldwide-smash song. These are some of the best and most practical methods to copyright your music, they do not guarantee copyright, but they should go a long way to proving your case in a court of law.
Send a DAT/CD/cassette of the work in a recognisable state (keyboard/guitar and voice will suffice) in a registered envelope, to your priest, old school teacher, doctor, or anyone not connected to the music industry and whose appearance is as far removed from the Prodigy's Keith Flint or Maralyn Manson as possible, for safe keeping. That dates it to the date of postage. Make sure they don't open it, though. Sending it to your bank manager to deposit will cost a bit of money to sort out, but if you've got a groovy bank manager they might like the idea of doing it for nothing -- no harm in asking.
Have it played on any logged broadcast medium (archived transmissions). All (legal) radio stations you can pick up in a car have their entire output recorded, which means that if your track is played on the farming hour on BBC local radio you can date it to that transmission time. Some hospital radio stations are also logged.
Have the work published by a reputable publishing company. Sending the title of the work to PRS (Performing Right Society) does register the work, but it does not copyright it. But if you send them a copy of the lyrics and the top-line melody, it might be enough to win in a court of law against someone who does try and nick your tune. It's not cast-iron proof, though, and you do need to be a member of PRS before you can avail yourself of their services.
Costs
The big question is exactly how much is it going to cost you? And the answer is... It's impossible to answer. Forty years ago the Beatles recorded 10 of the 14 tracks for their first album in less than 10 hours, using a couple of stereo tape recorders. At today's prices it would cost you around £50 per track to sound as good as the early Beatles. Then again, Trevor Horn spent three months and a shade over £250,000 recording Frankie Goes To Hollywood's classic Synclavier based 'Two Tribes'.
We've all heard of established bands taking months and months to record an album, but the majority of that time is wasted on writing and arranging parts, and writing lyrics. It costs nothing (comparatively) to spend time on your tracks before recording them.
At rehearsals make sure you can hear all the parts being played, if you can't hear the vocals and the kick drum properly, then quite possibly everything's out of sync with everything else - the bass and the drums are completely out to lunch and the singer's voice sounds a bit ropey. Break the arrangement down to bass and drums, this is well worth trying at rehearsals, a good proportion of tracks start with just the bass and drums.
The vocals can be worked on, but getting an inexperienced rhythm section to nail their parts together under the pressure of a recording session is tough. This is an excellent bit of advice for any band thinking about going into a studio, stick a mic into the kick drum, because unless you've played with proper monitoring you simply can't hear what the kick drum is doing, and it's the most vital part of a track, aside from the singing. No amount of studio gadgetry can make up for not having a tight, well-rehearsed rhythm section.