If you have read my last article, 'What does an audio engineer do when mastering music'?, you already know what is involved in the professional mastering process. To re-cap what that article said to all who haven't read it, the mastering process adds polish to your songs and makes them sonically cohesive. A lot of albums are recorded and then thrown on a disc, sans mastering. While this works fine, by no means do I recommend it. There are a few reasons why I wouldn't recommend doing this.

1. Mastering adds a professional, commercial sound to your songs or album.
All of your favorite albums and bands you hear on the radio have had their audio mastered by a professional mastering engineer before it was sent to CD manufacturing facility. This makes sure that you hear all the CD recordings low-end bass, mid-range, and highs crisply.

2. Audio mastering allows another set of ears to evaluate your audio.
Having another skilled audio technician listen to you recording is always a plus. They can bring a fresh perspective and ideas to your album production. Your recording and mixing engineers spent hours and hours listening to your music, someone who was not present and has a skilled ear can point out and help better the quality of your finished project.

Audio mastering is a vital step in the recording and CD manufacturing process. This article should help you understand why professional mastering is a step you should not leave out of your next recording project. All commercially released audio CDs utilize the CD mastering process, and you should do the same.