eli5: How do audio engineers & producers isolate sounds from recordings?

Question

Say you found a weird bird on the street & wanted to record it’s call. How would you remove wind & traffic noise?

In: 2

Answer 1

Based on my very limited understanding, all sounds come from certain frequencies, or pitches, that can be isolated using digital software. Through some careful analysis and trimming, you can remove the unwanted frequencies and keep the wanted ones, although it’s often not a perfect process unless done very well.