TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to systems comprising spectral envelope adjustment of audio signals using a real-valued subband filterbank. It reduces the aliasing introduced when using a real-valued subband filterbank for spectral envelope adjustment. It also enables an accurate energy calculation for sinusoidal components in a real-valued subband filterbank.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

It has been shown in PCT/SE02/00626 “Aliasing reduction using complex exponential modulated filterbanks”, that a complex-exponential modulated filterbank is an excellent tool for spectral envelope adjustment audio signals. In such a procedure the spectral envelope of the signal is represented by energy-values corresponding to certain filterbank channels. By estimating the current energy in those channels, the corresponding subband samples can be modified to have the desired energy, and hence the spectral envelope is adjusted. If restraints on computational complexity prevents the usage of a complex exponential modulated filterbank, and only allows for a cosine modulated (real-valued) implementation, severe aliasing is obtained when the filterbank is used for spectral envelope adjustment. This is particularly obvious for audio signals with a strong tonal structure, where the aliasing components will cause intermodulation with the original spectral components. The present invention offers a solution to this by putting restraints on the gain-values as a function of frequency in a signal dependent manner.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is the object of the present invention to provide an improved technique for spectral envelope adjustment.

In accordance with a first aspect of the invention, this object is achieved by an apparatus for spectral envelope adjustment of a signal, comprising: means for providing a plurality of subband signals, a subband signal having associated therewith a channel number k indicating a frequency range covered by the subband signal, the subband signal originating from a channel filter having the channel number k in an analysis filterbank having a plurality of channel filters, wherein the channel filter having the channel number k has a channel response which is overlapped with a channel response of an adjacent channel filter having a channel number k−1 in an overlapping range; means for examining the subband signal having associated therewith the channel number k and for examining an adjacent subband signal having associated therewith the channel number k−1 to determine, whether the subband signal and the adjacent subband signal have aliasing generating signal components in the overlapping range; means for calculating a first gain adjustment value and a second gain adjustment value for the subband signal and the adjacent subband signal in response to a positive result of the means for examining, wherein the means for calculating is operative to determine the first gain adjustment value and the second gain adjustment value dependent on each other; and means for gain adjusting the subband signal and the adjacent subband signal using the first and the second gain adjusting values or for outputting the first and the second gain adjustment values for transmission or storing.

In accordance with a second aspect of the invention, this object is achieved by a method of spectral envelope adjustment of a signal, comprising: providing a plurality of subband signals, a subband signal having associated therewith a channel number k indicating the frequency range covered by the subband signal, the subband signal originating from a channel filter having the channel number k in an analysis filterbank having a plurality of channel filters, wherein the channel filter having the channel number k has a channel response which is overlapped with a channel response of an adjacent channel filter having a channel number k−1 in an overlapping range; examining the subband signal having associated therewith the channel number k and for examining an adjacent subband signal having associated therewith the channel number k−1 to determine, whether the subband signal and the adjacent subband signal have aliasing generating signal components in the overlapping range; calculating a first gain adjustment value and a second gain adjustment value for the subband signal and the adjacent subband signal in response to a positive result of the means for examining, wherein the means for calculating is operative to determine the first gain adjustment value and the second gain adjustment value dependent on each other; and gain adjusting the subband signal and the adjacent subband signal using the first and the second gain adjusting values or outputting the first and the second gain adjustment values for transmission or storing.

In accordance with a third aspect of the invention, this object is achieved by a computer program having a program code for performing the above method, when the computer program runs on a computer.

In accordance with a fourth aspect of the invention, this object is achieved by a method for spectral envelope adjustment of a signal, using a filterbank where the filterbank comprises a real valued analysis part and a real valued synthesis part or where said filterbank comprises a complex analysis part and a real valued synthesis part, where a lower, in frequency, channel and an adjacent higher, in frequency, channel are modified using the same gain value, if the lower channel has a positive sign and the higher channel has a negative sign, so that a relation between subband samples of the lower channel and subband samples of the higher channel is maintained.

The present invention relates to the problem of intermodulation introduced by aliasing in a real-valued filterbank used for spectral envelope adjustment. The present invention analyses the input signal and uses the obtained information to restrain the envelope adjustment capabilities of the filterbank by grouping gain-values of adjacent channel in an order determined by the spectral characteristic of the signal at a given time. For a real-valued filterbank e.g. a pseudo-QMF where transition bands overlap with closest neighbour only, it can be shown that due to aliasing cancellation properties the aliasing is kept below the stop-band level of the prototype filter. If the prototype filter is designed with a sufficient aliasing suppression the filterbank is of perfect reconstruction type from a perceptual point of view, although this is not the case in a strict mathematical sense. However, if the channel gain of adjacent channels are altered between analysis and synthesis, the aliasing cancellation properties are violated, and aliasing components will appear audible in the output signal. By performing a low-order linear prediction on the subband samples of the filterbank channels, it is possible to assess, by observing the properties of the LPC polynomial, where in a filterbank channel a strong tonal component is present. Hence it is possible to assess which adjacent channels that must not have independent gain-values in order to avoid a strong aliasing component from the tonal component present in the channel.

The present invention comprises the following features:Analysing means of the subband channels to assess where in a subband channel a strong tonal component is present;Analysing by means of a low-order linear predictor in every subband channel;Gain grouping decision based on the location of the zeros of the LPC polynomial;Accurate energy calculation for a real-valued implementation.

