I don't know but it seemed to work well for him. I know of others that also do this.Did Herb Ellis adjust his pickup screws after he came home drunk one night? Or after mistakenly putting on an acoustic guitar string to replace a broken electric one?
I have a DeArmond magnetic pickup that I installed to one of my acoustic guitars. The factory setting has the pole screws at a different height for each string and there is a blurb in the instructions about adjusting from the factory setting if needed. I just left them stock but the manufacturer seems to think they can be dialed in if necessary.Is there a difference between adjusting the whole pickup up or down vs the pole pieces up or down? I get that the individual screws allow individual adjustments, but does adjusting the screws do something different than adjusting the pickup height?
Now that you mentioned this, I think I read the same comment by Seth Lover.I thought there was a interview that I once read a few years ago with Seth Lover, he mentioned the screws were more of a cosmetic look to the design of a PAF, and raising and lowering individual screws had no effect to the overall magnetic field and output of a PAF humbucker?
There is much voodoo regarding both the design and composition of covers and baseplates, a lot of it having to do with "eddy currents", that are well above my pay grade. I don't say "voodoo" to dismiss or cheapen it. Rather, the phenomena are so complex as to make straightforward descriptions, explanations, and predictions nigh impossible, . It's a bit like the state of brain research before we had CAT scans, MRIs, or radioactive tracer-labelling. In those days, we had people and animals with relatively localized brain damage, and could say from observation that this part looks like it's sorta important in that function. Pickup-makers are in a similar position. They know eddy currents and flux patterns exist, the same way that neuroscientists knew how neurons worked, and pickup-makers each have their experience with sonic differences arising from baseplates and/or covers made out of this or that, but being able to say how all those things operate systematically in the whole-pickup context is still beyond us.I remember doing that with my LP copy when I first got it--didn't notice anything, but it did seem a bit louder without the covers
(I remember reading something by Seth Lover that the covers Gibson used didn't affect volume or tone, but some types of metal could do that.)
I also raise and lower the pole pieces to try and achieve a better balance. However, given this thread, I wonder if I just hearing what I want to hear...LOLYes. I find some strings my be ever so slightly louder or not loud enough. I find raising/lower the pole pieces tends to balance things out.
If I can hear that a string is very slightly out of turn, I can correct it by ear. So I don't think my ear is too bad. I can balance out tone and volume fairly well (to may taste anyway) But my playing,...I also raise and lower the pole pieces to try and achieve a better balance. However, given this thread, I wonder if I just hearing what I want to hear...LOL
Where do you buy such polite strings? (Sorry... I couldn't resist)If I can hear that a string is very slightly out of turn