Patent ID: 7916874

Claim:
A gain adjusting method which is performed to adjust a gain of a processed voice signal by using a gain adjusting device, the gain adjusting method comprising: carrying out, by a first orthogonal transformation unit of the gain adjusting device, orthogonal transformation of a processed voice signal, which processed voice signal is obtained by carrying out signal processing of an input voice signal in a time domain, into a first spectrum power in a frequency domain; generating, by a first band dividing unit of the gain adjusting device, a first spectrum energy from the first spectrum power wherein the first spectrum power is divided into N bands, each band having a predetermined bandwidth, and the first spectrum energy is represented by a sum of the divided spectrum powers of the N bands; carrying out, by a second orthogonal transformation unit of the gain adjusting device, orthogonal transformation of the input voice signal in the time domain into a second spectrum power in a frequency domain; generating, by a second band dividing unit of the gain adjusting device, a second spectrum energy from the second spectrum power wherein the second spectrum power is divided into N bands, each band having the predetermined bandwidth, and the second spectrum energy is represented by a sum of the divided spectrum powers of the N bands; computing, by an auditory perception analyzing unit of the gain adjusting device, a masking power of the processed voice signal for each of the N bands, based on the first spectrum energy; selecting, by a spectrum selection unit of the gain adjusting device, from among the N bands, bands in which the first spectrum energy is below the corresponding masking power of the processed voice signal; determining, by an adjustment rate determining unit of the gain adjusting device, an adjustment rate for each of the N bands, such that a difference between a gain-adjusted spectrum energy, obtained as a result of gain adjustment of the first spectrum energy for the selected bands, and the second spectrum energy is equal to zero; adjusting, by a gain adjusting unit of the gain adjusting device, respective spectrum powers of the first spectrum energy for the selected bands in accordance with the adjustment rates determined for the selected bands to generate the gain-adjusted spectrum energy; and carrying out, by a third orthogonal transformation unit of the gain adjusting device, inverse orthogonal transformation of the respective spectrum powers of the gain-adjusted spectrum energy in the frequency domain, into an output voice signal in a time domain, and outputting the output voice signal to an external device.