An apparatus comprising: a first audio signal analyser configured to analyse a first audio signal to determine at least one audio source, wherein the at least one audio source has a virtual location; a second audio signal analyser configured to analyse a second audio signal to determine at least one localised audio source, wherein the second audio signal is generated from the apparatus audio environment; and a repositioner configured to reposition the virtual location of the at least one audio source dependent on the at least one localised audio source.

An apparatus includes microphone receivers configured to receive microphone signals from a plurality of microphones. A comparator configured to determine a speech similarity indication indicative of a similarity between the microphone signal and non-reverberant speech for each microphone signal. The determination is in response to a comparison of a property derived from the microphone signal to a reference property for non-reverberant speech. In some embodiments, the comparator is configured to determine the similarity indication by comparing to reference properties for speech samples of a set of non-reverberant speech samples. A generator is configured to generate a speech signal by combining the microphone signals in response to the similarity indications. The apparatus may be distributed over a plurality of devices each containing a microphone, and the approach may determine the most suited microphone for generating the speech signal.

A signal processing apparatus, for processing sounds collected in an environment where a target sound and an interfering sound are mixed in order to estimate a diffuse interfering sound accurately, is provided. The signal processing apparatus includes phase difference calculating means and generating means. The phase difference calculating means calculates a phase difference between the first input signal and the second input signal. The first input signal is generated based on the first input sound which is input in the environment where the target sound and the interfering sound are mixed. The second input signal is generated based on the second input sound which is input in the environment. The generating means generates an estimated interfering sound signal, based on the phase difference and the first input signal.

A system and method that enhances spoken utterances and provides entertainment by capturing one or more microphone signals containing echo and decomposing the one or more microphone signals into a plurality of signal paths through a synthesizer that adds or makes non-linear modifications to some of the captured one or more microphone signals. The system and method and estimates multiple echo paths from each of the one the one or more microphones. The system and method processes the captured microphone signals in response to the estimated plurality of echo paths by subtracting the echo contributions of each of the plurality of echo paths from the captured one or more microphone signals. The system and method also provide signal separation and post processing functions that renders speech recognition gaming applications.

A system and method that enhances spoken utterances and provides entertainment by capturing one or more microphone signals containing echo and decomposing the one or more microphone signals into a plurality of signal paths through a synthesizer that adds or makes non-linear modifications to some of the captured one or more microphone signals. The system and method and estimates multiple echo paths from each of the one the one or more microphones. The system and method processes the captured microphone signals in response to the estimated plurality of echo paths by subtracting the echo contributions of each of the plurality of echo paths from the captured one or more microphone signals. The system and method also provide signal separation and post processing functions that renders speech recognition gaming applications.

A method of performing noise reduction includes capturing a first audio signal at a first microphone of a first device. The method also includes receiving, at the first device, audio data representative of a second audio signal from a second device. The second audio signal is captured by a second microphone of the second device. The method further includes performing noise reduction on the first audio signal based at least in part on the audio data representative of the second audio signal.

A receiver circuit comprising a first-input-terminal configured to receive an analogue-input-signal, which is representative of audio-data; and a second-input-terminal configured to receive a digital-input-signal, which is representative of the same audio-data as the analogue-input-signal. The receiver circuit also includes a noise-estimator configured to determine a noise-signal that is representative of a difference between the analogue-input-signal and the digital-input-signal; and a de-noiser that is configured to determine a de-noised-signal by applying a de-noising algorithm to the analogue-input-signal based on the noise-signal.

An apparatus comprising: a first audio signal analyzer configured to analyze a first audio signal to determine at least one audio source, wherein the at least one audio source has a virtual location; a second audio signal analyzer configured to analyze a second audio signal to determine at least one localized audio source, wherein the second audio signal is generated from the apparatus audio environment; and a repositioner configured to reposition the virtual location of the at least one audio source dependent on the at least one localized audio source.

A method at an electronic device with one or more microphones and a speaker, the electronic device configured to be awakened by any of a plurality of affordances including a voice-based affordance, includes determining a noise profile of an environment around the electronic device; determining whether the noise profile interferes with the voice-based affordance; and in accordance with a determination that the noise profile interferes with the voice-based affordance, presenting a hint to a user to use an affordance of the plurality of affordances other than the voice-based affordance to awaken the electronic device.

A device, system, and method whereby a speech-driven system used in an industrial environment distinguishes speech obtained from users of the system from other background sounds. In one aspect, the present system and method provides for a first audio stream from a user microphone collocated with a source of human speech (that is, a user) and a second audio stream from a environmental microphone which is proximate to the source of human speech but more remote than the user microphone. The audio signals from the two microphones are asynchronous. A processor is configured to identify a common, distinctive sound event in the environment, such as an impulse sound or a periodic sound signal. Based on the common sound event, the processor provides for synchronization of the two audio signals. In another aspect, the present system and method provides for a determination of whether or not the sound received at the user microphone is suitable for identification of words in a human voice, based on a comparison of sound elements in the first audio stream and the second audio stream, for example based on a comparison of the sound intensities of the sound elements in the audio streams.