The mastering process of music recording involves preparing your music for duplication. Several steps are involved in taking your songs from individual, mixed tunes to part of a whole album. First, you need to optimize the dynamics and tonal balance of each song, and then you need to process the songs so that they are matched in volume to each other. These steps usually involve doing some EQing(equalizing), compressing, limiting, and sometimes expanding to the songs.

You also need to sequence your music so that you have the songs in the best possible order and you have the appropriate amount of time between each song. Your last step is to put your mastered music onto a format that enables you to duplicate it. (This is usually a CD.)