A method for providing a decoded representation (512; 514: 630b) of an audio signal on the basis of an encoded audio stream (510; 610) representing spectral components of frequency bands of the audio signal and a multi-band noise intensity value , the method comprising: introducing noise into spectral components of a plurality of frequency bands, to which separate frequency band gain information, namely scale factors, is associated, on the basis of a common multi-band noise intensity value; wherein starting from a noise filling start line every spectral line quantized to zero is replaced with a replacement value, which is an indicated noise value, a magnitude of which is determined by the multi-band noise intensity value, with a random sign, to perform a noise filling in a quantized domain; and wherein the method comprises scaling a replacement value using a scale factor transmitted for an actual scale factor band, to perform an individual scaling of noise introduced into different frequency bands on the basis of the frequency band gain information; wherein spectral bin values of spectral bins quantized to zero are replaced with spectral bin noise values, magnitudes of which spectral bin noise values are dependent on the multi-band noise intensity value , to obtain replaced spectral bin values, only for frequency bands having a lowest spectral bin index above a predetermined spectral bin index, leaving spectral bin values of frequency bands having a lowest spectral bin index below the predelormined spectral bin index unaftected; wherein the method comprises selectively modifying, for the frequency bands having a lowest spectral bin index above the predetermined spectral bin index, a band gain value of a given frequency band in dependence on a noise offset value, if the given frequency band is entirely quantized to zero; and wherein the selectively-modified or unmodified band gain values are applied to the selectively-replaced or un-replaced spectral bin values, to obtain a scaled spectral information, which represents the audio signal. introducing noise into spectral components of a plurality of frequency bands, to which separate frequency band gain information, namely scale factors, is associated, on the basis of a common multi-band noise intensity value; wherein starting from a noise filling start line every spectral line quantized to zero is replaced with a replacement value, which is an indicated noise value, a magnitude of which is determined by the multi-band noise intensity value, with a random sign, to perform a noise filling in a quantized domain; and wherein the method comprises scaling a replacement value using a scale factor transmitted for an actual scale factor band, to perform an individual scaling of noise introduced into different frequency bands on the basis of the frequency band gain information; wherein spectral bin values of spectral bins quantized to zero are replaced with spectral bin noise values, magnitudes of which spectral bin noise values are dependent on the multi-band noise intensity value , to obtain replaced spectral bin values, only for frequency bands having a lowest spectral bin index above a predetermined spectral bin index, leaving spectral bin values of frequency bands having a lowest spectral bin index below the predelormined spectral bin index unaftected; wherein the method comprises selectively modifying, for the frequency bands having a lowest spectral bin index above the predetermined spectral bin index, a band gain value of a given frequency band in dependence on a noise offset value, if the given frequency band is entirely quantized to zero; and wherein the selectively-modified or unmodified band gain values are applied to the selectively-replaced or un-replaced spectral bin values, to obtain a scaled spectral information, which represents the audio signal. <EOS>