Neural-inspired audio signal processor

A method of filtering an audio signal-of-interest from an input audio signal comprising a mixture of the audio signal-of-interest and background noise,

• the method performed by a processor comprising a frontend unit, the frontend unit comprising a filterbank, the filterbank comprising one or more bandpass filters, a sound level estimator, and a memory with an input-output, I/O, functions stored on said memory, wherein the frontend unit is configured to perform the following method steps:
• i) receiving:
• an unfiltered input audio signal,
• human-derived neural-inspired feedback signals, NIFS,
• ii) extracting sound level estimates from an output of the one or more bandpass filters using the sound level estimator,
• iii) modifying the input-output, I/O, functions in response to the received sound level estimates and the NIFS,
• iv) determining an enhanced I/O function,
• v) storing the enhanced I/O function on said memory,
• vi) using the enhanced I/O function to determine one or more modified parameters to apply to the filter/filters of the filterbank in response to the received NIFS, wherein the one or more modified filterbank parameters include:
• i) a modified gain value and ii) a modified compression value for a given input audio signal,
• vii) applying the modified filterbank parameters either across one filter of the filterbank or across a range of filters of the filterbank within the frontend unit, wherein the frontend unit is further configured to:
• apply the modified gain value and the modified compression value to the unfiltered input audio signal by way of modifying the input or parameters of a given filter or range of filters of the filterbank to determine a filtered output audio signal, and
• viii) outputting the filtered audio signal to a sound feature onset detector for further processing.