A selected channel of a multi-channel signal which is represented by frames composed from sampling values having a high time resolution can be encoded with higher quality when a wave form parameter representation representing a wave form of an intermediate resolution representation of the selected channel is derived, the wave form parameter representation including a sequence of intermediate wave form parameters having a time resolution lower than the high time resolution of the sampling values and higher than a time resolution defined by a frame repetition rate. The wave form parameter representation with the intermediate resolution can be used to shape a reconstructed channel to retrieve a channel having a signal envelope close to that one of the selected original channel. The time scale on which the shaping is performed is shorter than the time scale of a framewise processing, thus enhancing the quality of the reconstructed channel. On the other hand, the shaping time scale is larger than the time scale of the sampling values, significantly reducing the amount of data needed by the wave form parameter representation.