eli5 How does the brain separate out frequencies it’s hearing so that we can make out different instruments in a song? It seems like some insanely complex analysis behind the scenes??
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There are two parts to this answer; the biological pattern recognition part that others have mentioned is an important piece of the puzzle. The other piece is audio mixing. The job of a mixing engineer is to manipulate and edit the recorded frequencies in order to ensure there is not too much clashing going on between instruments, in order to allow your brain to make more sense of what’s going on. If no mixing is done, the resulting song will be quite “muddy”, and as such it is harder to parse through and understand each individual track. Granted; you would of course still be able to make sense of what you’re hearing, and it still sounds like music, but since audio mixing is essentially the act of separating out frequencies, some of the work is being done for you.
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