To store main information with associated additional information
incorporated therein, data constituting the additional information is
divided into a plurality of small-size data pieces of, e.g., one bit.
Then, the respective values of particular ones of predetermined data
units (e.g., bytes) constituting the main information are subjected to
arithmetic operations in accordance with a predetermined algorithm
containing the value of each of the data pieces as a parameter. In this
way, the respective values of the particular data units in the main
information are modulated in accordance with the values of the individual
data pieces in the additional information; at that time, only some of the
data unit values are altered with the others left unaltered. The
thus-arithmetically-operated main information is stored into a storage.
For reproduction of the additional information, the stored main
information is read out, and the individual data pieces are reproduced
from the particular data units by inversely executing the algorithm. For
example, the main information includes MIDI key-on event data, program
change data or control change data, waveform data, or image data, and the
additional information includes letter data representative of the name of
an author of a music piece in question, title of the music piece or title
of an image and data representative of a data format employed.