Modular NESC

Encoder (500) for encoding an audio signal (AS), comprising: a sub-band decomposition entity (510) configured to obtain individual groups of sub-bands (SBa, SBb, SBc) of the audio signal (AS) based on the audio signal (AS); and several neural encoders (514a, 514b, 514c), each involving learnable layers and configured to code individual groups of sub- bands (SBa, SBb, SBc) or a single full band signal.