A MBE synthesizer (2200) for generating speech from information received by a receiver (114) includes a voiced signal generator (2280) for generating voiced signal components in the time domain using an IDFT in a pitch wave generator (2210) and and a pitch wave resampler (2232) and an unvoiced signal generator (2290) for generating unvoiced signal components in the time domain. The MBE synthesizer also includes a voicing processor (2218) responsive to band voicing flags within the excitation information for controlling selection of a voiced spectral component or an unvoiced spectral component from a harmonic amplitude spectrum.