1. A method for signal processing comprising: providing a set of prototype spectral envelopes; providing a set of reference noise prototypes, wherein the reference noise prototypes are obtained from at least a sub-set of the provided set of prototype spectral envelopes; detecting a verbal utterance by at least one microphone to obtain a microphone signal; processing the microphone signal for noise reduction based on the provided reference noise prototypes to obtain an enhanced signal; and encoding the enhanced signal based on the provided prototype spectral envelopes to obtain an encoded enhanced signal.