Abstract: Method and apparatus for encoding and manipulating digital signals are provided. The method, and associated apparatus, includes sampling the signal waveform to obtain a series of discrete samples and constructing therefrom a series of frames; multiplying each frame with a windowing function; applying a Fast Fourier transform to each frame producing a frequency-domain waveform; convoluting the resultant frequency domain data with a variable kernel function; locating local maxima and surrounding minima in the magnitude spectrum of each convolved frame, each local maxima and associated minima defining a plurality of regions corresponding to a frequency component of the signal; and analyzing each of the regions in the frequency domain representation by summing the complex frequency components of bins falling within the defined regions into a single vector.