The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for encoding and decoding object- based audio signals. This audio decoding method includes extracting a first audio signal and a first audio parameter in which a music object are encoded on a channel basis and a second audio signal and a second audio parameter in which a vocal object are encoded on an object basis, from an audio signal, generating a third audio signal by employing at least one of the first and second audio signals, and generating a multi-channel audio signal by employing at least one of the first and second audio parameters and the third audio signal. Accordingly, the amount of calculation in encoding and decoding processes and the size of a bitstream that is encoded can be reduced efficiently.