recording vs mastering

recording and mastering both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
recording	Yes	No	No	No
mastering	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, mastering is a hyponym of recording; that is, mastering is a word with a more specific, narrower meaning than recording:

recording: the act of making a record (especially an audio record)
mastering: the act of making a master recording from which copies can be made

Other hyponyms of recording include lip sync, lip synch, lip synchronisation, lip synchronization.

recording (noun)	mastering (noun)
the act of making a record (especially an audio record)	the act of making a master recording from which copies can be made
a signal that encodes something (e.g., picture or sound) that has been recorded	becoming proficient in the use of something; having mastery of
a storage device on which information (sounds or images) have been recorded