Welcome to hell, and prepare for a long & hard journey that may lead you to lose your sanity eventually -- not to mention rob you of your money, girlfriend(s), life, etc.
Once you get your monitoring situation good enough to where it is merely
truthful, then the abyss will only just begin to open up underneath your feet. Now you will start to REALLY hear that your bass, vocal, guitar, etc. sounds just plain sonically SUCK, even though the performances may be top notch !! Then you may next have the
deeply painful experience of hearing what a real $slutty$ piece of outboard gear can do to lift your tracks out of the SUCK category!
After this you will be staring into the eyes of a merciless demon called "gear lust" who will proceed (if you let him) to rob you of everything. Why ? Because you aint gonna even get into the ring of the records you mention without bowing before this demon and licking his filthy feet whilst he laughs at you.
As of now you still have a chance to turn back and avoid going down the dark road of wanting to make a serious record that doesn't sound like a suck-ass demo.
