In order to extract modulating information from the multicomponent mo dulated signal. A new signal analysis method, the local mean decomposition (LMD) ， is researched in this paper. The LMD firstly decomposes the multicomponent mo dulated signal into a set of product functions, each of which is the product of an envelope signal and a frequency modulated signal from which instantaneous amp litude and frequency can be derived. Accordingly, the integrity modulating infor mation can be obtained. In this paper, the LMD is applied to a simulated signal and a gear fault vibration signal, and the results show that the modulating information of the signalｓ can be extracted effectively.