MIMF

Like the title says, on one of my guitars the strings dont perfectly line up with the center of the poles on the pickups. they are off to the side a little. they are still over the poles, just not over the center. I could correct this by ordering new saddles that aren't pre-slotted, but does it even matter as far as sound is concerned?

thanks

As long as the strings are over the poles, you'll be ok. The closer to the center the better, but a little wiggle room is fine. Just play it and see how it goes.

It only matters if you can hear it. The major manufacturers never worried about stuff like that.

what I have "read" from a book (Make Your Own Electric Guitar by Melvyn Hiscock), a string not lined perfectly with the pole might impact the output of that string, a higher gauge string will be less affected by that compared to the lowest gauge (high E - low E strings from a guitar), another change that's more important than the output of the string is the difference in attack from down-picking and upper-picking (not sure if I used the right words, but you get it, right?) with the string not centered right, the difference in attack will be more notorious (higher gauge strings are less affected too).

NOW, what David Kind said stand higher than what I said, it only matters if you can hear it, some people don't hear a difference between a Rosewood fretboard or a maple one (I vote for burning those people of), so it don't matter if you can't hear a difference, personally I would not worry SO much.

I don't really think that if you're really going for it on an electric guitar the strings are going to be moving around a lot anyway...maybe that's what gives it such interesting tones? I think a lot better indicator of sound quality is the quality of the pickups themselves.

If you look at a vintage guitar, back when nobody differentiated between "neck" and "bridge" pups, they were identical, necessarily one or the other wasn't going to align perfectly with the strings. Yet some people claim old 50s Les Pauls sound OK.....

I think it's more of a visual problem (if it's even a problem). I sometimes have a hell of a time lining up strings with poles and it doesn't seem to affect the sound of my guitars. It drives me crazy to look at it though.

If you're using pickups for the neck and bridge with the same pole width, and your strings taper in spacing, then there is bound to be some non-alignment. Just use blades!

What type of mounting did you use?
If you used pickup rings, just bend the ears on the pickup to move it a tiny bit if it is more than say 1/8 inch it might not work, but I have do this for guitars I was setting up.

If you used a pick-guard you could always make a new one, and make the adjustment there, both are cheap fixes.