Abstract: An improved method of performing channel selection in multi-channel pitch detection systems. For each channel, several features are computed using the input signal and the value of the pitch candidate from the channel. The resulting feature vector is used to evaluate a multi-variate likelihood function which defines the likelihood that the pitch candidate represents the correct pitch. The final pitch estimate is then taken to be the pitch candidate with the highest likelihood of being correct, or the mean (or median) of the pitch candidates with likelihoods above a given threshold. The functional form of the likelihood function can be defined using several different parametric representations, and the parameters of the likelihood function can be advantageously derived in an automated manner using signals having pitch labels that are considered to be correct. This represents a significant improvement over previous channel selection methods where the parameters are chosen laboriously by hand.