Method and system for reducing effects of noise producing artifacts in a voice codec

A speech decoding system for reducing effect of noise producing artifacts in silence areas of a speech signal, the speech decoding system comprising:

• a subframe energy level calculator configured to obtain a plurality of incoming samples of a speech subframe, and configured to sum an absolute value of an energy level for each of the plurality of incoming samples to generate a total input level (gain_in), and further configured to smooth the total input level to generate a smoothed level (Level_in_sm);
• a subframe energy level comparator configured to determine that the speech subframe is in a silence area based on the total input level, the smoothed level and a spectral tilt parameter;
• a subframe energy level modifier configured to define a gain using k1*(Level_in_sm/1024)+(1−k1), where k1 is a function of the spectral tilt parameter, and further configured to modify an energy level of the speech subframe using the gain to produce a modified speech subframe;
• and
• an output for generating the speech signal using the modified speech subframe.