Noise Floor First: A Workflow Order That Prevents Re-Filtering Later
Let's be honest: filtering noise is not the glamorous part of signal processing. But get the order wrong and you'll be cleaning up the same mess for weeks. I've watched teams burn days because they filtered aggressively, then discovered the baseline drift they should have handled first. This isn't about fancy algorithms—it's about doing the work in an order that actually sticks. Here's the deal: the noise floor is not just a number you measure once. It's a moving target that depends on the environment, the hardware, and even the time of day. If you don't establish it first, every filter you apply later is guesswork. You'll chase artifacts that aren't there and miss real signals that are. This workflow has saved me hours on every project I've used it on, and it will do the same for you.