A coding apparatus, including a processor that performs operations, including encoding a first band of an input audio signal to be a first spectrum and dividing the first spectrum into a plurality of subbands at equal intervals, each interval including a predetermined number of samples. The operations also include searching a largest amplitude value of the divided first spectrum in each of the subbands, and normalizing the divided first spectrum with the largest amplitude values searched in each of the subbands to obtain a flattened first spectrum. The operations further include searching a best band which has a largest correlation value between each divided band of a second band spectrum and the flattened first spectrum, the second spectrum being higher than a predetermined frequency, and encoding the second spectrum using lag information identifying the best bands for transmitting the lag information to a decoder side.