An exact analysis of the critically subsampled two-band modelization scheme is given, and it is demonstrated that adaptive cross-filters between the subbands are necessary for modelization with small output errors. It is shown that perfect reconstruction filter banks can yield exact modelization. These results are extended to the critically subsampled multiband schemes, and important computational savings are seen to be achieved by using good quality filter banks. The problem of adaptive identification in critically subsampled subbands is considered and an appropriate adaptation algorithm is derived. The authors give a detailed analysis of the computational complexity of all the discussed schemes, and experimentally verify the theoretical results that are obtained. The adaptive behavior of the subband schemes that were tested is discussed