A method is described for generating electrode stimulation signals for a plurality of stimulation electrodes in an implanted electrode array. An acoustic audio signal is processed with a bank of filters to generate a set of band pass signals where each band pass signal corresponds to a band of audio frequencies associated with one of the filters. A lateral suppression network is used to perform channel specific dynamic amplitude mapping of the band pass signals to generate a set of compressed band pass signals. Stimulation information is extracted from the compressed band pass signals to generate a set of stimulation timing signals, and the stimulation timing signals are developed into a set of electrode stimulation signals to the stimulation electrodes.