Signal compression is gaining importance in biomedical engineering due to the potential applications in telemedicine. In this work, we propose a novel scheme of signal compression based on signal-dependent wavelets. To adapt the mother wavelet to the signal for the purpose of compression, it is necessary to define (1) a family of wavelets that depend on a set of parameters and (2) a quality criterion for wavelet selection (i.e., wavelet parameter optimization). We propose the use of an unconstrained parameterization of the wavelet for wavelet optimization. A natural performance criterion for compression is the minimization of the signal distortion rate given the desired compression rate. For coding the wavelet coefficients, we adopted the embedded zerotree wavelet coding algorithm, although any coding scheme may be used with the proposed wavelet optimization. As a representative example of application, the coding/encoding scheme was applied to surface electromyographic signals recorded from ten subjects. The distortion rate strongly depended on the mother wavelet (for example, for 50% compression rate, optimal wavelet, mean+/-SD, 5.46+/-1.01%; worst wavelet 12.76+/-2.73%). Thus, optimization significantly improved performance with respect to previous approaches based on classic wavelets. The algorithm can be applied to any signal type since the optimal wavelet is selected on a signal-by-signal basis. Examples of application to ECG and EEG signals are also reported.