APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR ENCODING OR DECODING A MULTI-CHANNEL SIGNAL

Embodiments provide an apparatus for encoding a multi-channel signal having at least three channels. The apparatus comprises an iteration processor, a channel encoder and an output interface. The iteration processor is configured to calculate, in a first iteration step, inter-channel correlation values between each pair of the at least three channels, for selecting, in the first iteration step, a pair having a highest value or having a value above a threshold, and for processing the selected pair using a multi-channel processing operation to derive first multi-channel parameters for the selected pair and to derive first processed channels. Further, the iteration processor is configured to perform the calculating, the selecting and the processing in a second iteration step using at least one of the processed channels to derive second multi-channel parameters and second processed channels. The channel encoder is configured to encode channels resulting from an iteration processing performed by the iteration processor to obtain encoded channels. The output interface is configured to generate an encoded multi-channel signal having the encoded channels and the first and the second multi-channel parameters.