Some of you may remember seeing this pic on my NGD post:
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Besides the sloppy job the questions I've been asking myself the last few days is: what is this prep material? and does it affect the tone of the guitar? If you tap your finger close to the area on top of the soundboard it sounds dead (hard as a rock).
I've been struggling the last few days to get the sound from a pickup that I'm used to and after exhausting all options I finally looked at the soundboard prep and you can probably guess what happened next. 60 grit sand paper made quick work of it. I can't say exactly what it is but it's some form of carbon compound. I followed up with 400 grit to smooth out the surface afterwards. The guitar sounds totally different now (unplugged). Not that I had an issue with how the guitar sounded before but now it sounds a lot clearer overall.
I'll reinstall the pickup when I get time but I really don't recommend people to get the soundboard prep if it had that much of an impact.