PAF Style Humbuckers--Adjusting?

[Bongo Boy]

I've got a Gibson with PAF '57s and my Ibanez has the Super 58s in it. Are the slotted-head screws at the magnet locations intended for 'adjusting' in any way--do they actually do anything?

[Bizarro]

Those screws definitely work. They adjust the strength of 'pickup' at each string. Some people like to futz around with that stuff forever(for example: Eric Johnson!). The D and G string usually have raised pole pieces in these setups.

I'd check out the Dimarzio, Seymour Duncan, Fralin, and Bill Lawrence web sites for more information. Those guys know way too much about that sort of thing.

[szulc]

The trick is to get the magnet close enough to the string to get a strong signal but not so close that it dampens the vibration. What will happen is you will get nodes created above the pickup pole and the harmonic will ring, this sounds bad. The main thing is to improve your signal to noise ratio by getting the string sound as loud as possible without causing the dampening to occur.