Fender Japan DrK Tele, anyone have any experience with one of these?

[Craig Williams]

I am an Aussie living in Thailand and picked this up pretty cheap actually by US Standards. The thing is gorgeous, lovely playable neck and on paper should be the business but just finding it a bit hard to bond with it. Lace PU....MEH. The combination of the PU seems odd to me, like the Seymour JD fairly high output where as the Lace very mild. And the switching config is weird to me. I would really like to be able to play neck / middle...the Two lace PU together. I bought it hoping it would have the out of phase Strat thing but doesn't seem to do it on the bridge / middle position. For a guitar with 5 positions I actually see very little tonal variation between the switches. All The PU have been adjusted and balanced for output. Maybe I should be looking at it as a Tele rather than a one does all.

I would really like to keep it and know I will regret selling down the track if I did. Like now there would be 3 guitars I have I would pick up before this one and know I probably wont play it much. Can anyone inspire me with something I can do to make it more interesting? Using the same settings on my Amp my US RW neck Strat Deluxe with Noiseless PU actually sounds like it has more top end and presence.

I am predominantly a rhythm player, and often in a Tele I will install a 500 ohm Vol pot, gives a Really shimmery top end thing, like a Rickenbacker. Does anyone know how these things are wired re standard 250 ohm pots? Obviously wiring a bit different for 5 position switch but because of the Lace sensors is there anything special in the wiring circuit? Any help or tips appreciated, would really like to love this thing.

 

[Bongoslade]

i can't speak to your original problem of ID'ing your Tele, but a really nice Tele btw.
good luck, playing around with your tone controls in the never ending quest..

 

[NiceTele]

I am an Aussie living in Thailand and picked this up pretty cheap actually by US Standards. The thing is gorgeous, lovely playable neck and on paper should be the business but just finding it a bit hard to bond with it. Lace PU....MEH. The combination of the PU seems odd to me, like the Seymour JD fairly high output where as the Lace very mild. And the switching config is weird to me. I would really like to be able to play neck / middle...the Two lace PU together. I bought it hoping it would have the out of phase Strat thing but doesn't seem to do it on the bridge / middle position. For a guitar with 5 positions I actually see very little tonal variation between the switches. All The PU have been adjusted and balanced for output. Maybe I should be looking at it as a Tele rather than a one does all.

I would really like to keep it and know I will regret selling down the track if I did. Like now there would be 3 guitars I have I would pick up before this one and know I probably wont play it much. Can anyone inspire me with something I can do to make it more interesting? Using the same settings on my Amp my US RW neck Strat Deluxe with Noiseless PU actually sounds like it has more top end and presence.

I am predominantly a rhythm player, and often in a Tele I will install a 500 ohm Vol pot, gives a Really shimmery top end thing, like a Rickenbacker. Does anyone know how these things are wired re standard 250 ohm pots? Obviously wiring a bit different for 5 position switch but because of the Lace sensors is there anything special in the wiring circuit? Any help or tips appreciated, would really like to love this thing.

I used a friend's DrK Tele a few years back at it was top quality. It had a full humbucker in the neck position, and the single coil bridge and middle. It could do a passable job of Strat quacking from memory. Maybe your Tele has a specific factory wiring setup, but there's no reason it can't be wired to get the result you want- the Lace pups should be fine for that, maybe ask a guitar tech, if one is available near you.

 

[Ivan]

Sorry I can’t answer your question exactly but thought I would share my experience.

I had a placid blue one in 2005 for about 6 months. Bought it online from Japan as it looked amazing.

This is from memory but I had 3 big issues with mine.
- It was the heaviest tele I’d ever played. (As heavy as a typical les paul)
- The binding seemed to have less of a radius than other bound teles so wasn’t comfortable on my forearm.
- Pickups sounded a bit uninspired. They were fine but I remember being a bit underwhelmed after the first strum. A little sterile and put me off noise cancelling types for years.

It’s a shame because I still think they look really unique and good. Hopefully yours isn’t as bad as mine. Maybe you’d prefer changing the pickups to a more conventional Nashville set up?