In a CELP coder, a comparison between a target signal and a plurality of synthetic signals is made. A synthetic signal is derived by filtering a plurality of excitation sequences by a synthesis filter having parameters derived from the target signal. The excitation signal, which results in a minimum error between the target signal and the synthetic signal, is selected. The search for the best excitation signal requires a substantial computational complexity. To reduce the complexity, a preselection of a small number of excitation sequences is made by selecting a small number of excitation sequences resembling the most backward filtered target signal. With this small number of excitation sequences a full complexity search is made. Due to the reduced number of excitation sequences involved in the final selection the required computational complexity is reduced.