Help me with pickup screw adjustments

[A-A-Ron]

I am setting up my valentine guitar. I have a newbie question. My valentine humbucker has 2 screws on the bass side and one on the treble. Are they all adjustment screws or are some just for mounting the pickup? Also I was surprised that music man called for the neck pickup to be higher then the bridge. Thanks in advanced and feel free to add any other set up tips. My neck is pretty dark with the tone all the way up. Curious if adjustment could slightly brighten it.

 

[DrKev]

Those screws adjust the pickup height, (two screws on the bass side allow you to keep the pickup level with the strings front-to-back). Feel free to adjust it which ever way you like the sound. It's your call. Sometimes a dark pickup can be remedied by adjusting the bass side lower than the treble side, but sometimes it's just a dark pickup. That's the pickup James Valentine wanted so that's what's on the production guitar.

Music Man specification is to have the neck pickup farther from the strings than the bridge pickup. For the Valentine, from bottom of the open E string to top of the pickup pole pieces:

Neck Pickup - 6/32" (4.8 mm)
Bridge pickup - 4/32 (3.2 mm)

Use those numbers s a starting point and adjust to what your ears like best.

 

[racerx]

2 screws on the bass side and one on the treble

They do both - mount and height adjustment. As for the 2+1 configuration, there may be a practical purpose but I've just chalked it up to stylistic choice of MM. (I noticed it prevents the back and forth rocking that can occur on 2-screw adjustment styles - so maybe that is the reason!)

I found this factory spec reference on the forum search from DrKev & Daniel:

The pickup heights are set from the factory at 4/32" [bridge] and 6/32" [neck]. However, you can adjust these heights to match your playing style.

On my Valentine the heights are similar and I find they're well balanced.