CMP exam coverage: how deep does it go on mixing vs mastering distinction?
I want to know how the CMP draws the line between mixing and mastering content on the exam. As someone with a strong audio engineering background I find mixing and mastering are covered in very different depth by different certification programs — some treat mastering as a brief overview while others expect you to know specific LUFS targets, true peak limiting, and loudness standards for streaming platforms.
For the audio recording certification side of things I'm fairly confident — gain staging, mic placement, room acoustics, signal chain setup. But I'm curious whether the CMP exam treats mastering as a separate competency domain or rolls it into the general mixing and post-production section.
I found the CMP Audio Mixing Techniques practice quiz to be solid prep for the mixing domain. Questions covered EQ curves, compression ratios, stereo width, and bus processing — all practical and well-framed. I haven't found equivalent mastering-specific practice material. If anyone has notes on what mastering topics showed up in the real exam, that would be extremely helpful for my final prep week.
In my experience the exam covers mastering at a conceptual level — loudness normalization for Spotify/Apple Music, what a mastering chain typically includes, when to use multiband compression. It doesn't go deep on specific dB targets. Mixing got far more questions and detail. Budget your study time accordingly.
The LUFS standards for streaming came up briefly but it was just one or two questions. Nothing that required deep memorization of exact numbers. The exam cares more that you understand the purpose of mastering and when it's needed than that you can recite exact technical thresholds.
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