■ 1961 Fender Stratocaster ■
■ Commentary ■
This guitar seems to have been used by Dominic since 1996. It was his main guitar for a long time. Sting’s ‘My Songs’ tour from 2022 to March 2023 used a very beautiful 1968 maple Telecaster in mint condition, bought in 2022, and this Strat was used again on the tour from June 2023.
But I looked at it the other day and it was back to a maple Tele. To be honest, I don’t really know Dominic’s criteria for choosing which guitars to use when he tours with Sting. In the past Dominic has said that he keeps his guitars scattered around the world because he doesn’t want to travel with a lot of guitars, so he might just use the guitars that are available in those locations.
Guitar Specs
This guitar is a pre-CBS Stratocaster built by Fender in 1961. The body is alder and the neck appears to be rosewood and maple; from 1959 to early 1962 Stratocasters were known as slab necks, with rosewood glued flat to the maple neck. It is a thicker guitar with a good midrange. The colour is a three-tone sunburst, which is a sprayed gradient of red on yellow, black on red, etc. The same specs were made from 1959 to 1962, but many 1959 and 1960s fade and the red colour does not remain, but from 1961 the finish is changed so the red colour is less likely to fade. This is vintage, so the scratches caused by being played for a long time are really cool!
Modified Parts
【About modifying this Strat】
This is what I heard from Richie Mazzetta, Dominic’s guitar tech, in June 2025.
Richie ; “Regarding Dom’s Strat. The pickups are original. I believe all the capacitors are original as well. I have had to replace the Volume potentiometer 2 times. Everything else is original I believe. “
【Other modification parts】
- Fingerboard :The fingerboard section has been replaced. The rosewood fingerboard was repaired because the fingerboard was gouged out years of use and age. Wing guitars of this era had 7.25″ radius fingerboards, but when this one was repaired it was changed to a more gradual 10″ radius and the frets were replaced with stainless steel.
- Nuts :The nut has been replaced with a carbon one.
- Tremolo bar :It has been replaced.
- Strap pins :The original strap pins seem to have been replaced with locking pins, which are made to prevent the strap pins from coming off, even when played hard at gigs.
Noise Cancelling
Also, it’s not clear when, but from about 2023, Dominic installed the ‘Ilitch system'(https://www.ilitchelectronics.com) below on the back of the pickguard of this guitar to prevent noise in the guitar’s pickups.This Ilitch BPNCS stands for Back Plate Noise Canceling System and is a product that uses a dummy coil in the back plate to reduce noise only (bumping the opposite phase to cancel out the noise) while maintaining the tone of a normal single coil. This ’61 Strat has two single-coil PUs and a 60-cycle humbucker. The noise generated from this is then controlled by this Ilitch system.
I’m not a guitarist, so at first I couldn’t understand why only this Strat had this system. This is because Dominic’s sub guitar, Bill Nash’s Telecaster (blue), does not have such a noise cancelling system.However, when I asked someone familiar with Dominic’s equipment and vintage guitars, this was the answer ;’Humbucker noise cancellation is a problem with all vintage single coil PU guitars’.It means this is really a problem that only happens on this Strat.
The Picks
As many people will know, this is the pick that Dominic uses.
Jim Dunlop Guitar Picks Herco Nylon Flat Picks 【Flex 75 HE211P Silver (Heavy)】
Interesting Back Story
There is, however, an interesting story about this Strat. An article in the November 1996 issue of PLAYER magazine, which I used to have, said.
[This guitar was made around ’62, when the fretboard went from flat to round, and this guitar is flat… …The ’60s Strat has a slightly thicker, milder tone with more emphasis on the midrange than the ’50s Strat. This is probably why blues players prefer this guitar. The nut has been replaced with a carbon one and the tremolo bar has been replaced. The body is quite scratched but has a cool vintage look. Dominic was working in the studio about two years ago when the producer asked him to play on a vintage guitar, but he didn’t have one, so the producer found one for him. And when we finished the recording, the vintage guitar was Dominic’s. What a generous producer! ]
The man who provided Dominic with this Stratocaster was well-known Nashville artist and producer Rodney Crowell. The Strat seems to have originally belonged to Rodney. Dominic played on Beth Nielsen Chapman’s 1997 album Sand and Water, which was produced by Rodney. By the way, the current market price for a ’61 Strat is about USD 33,000.(31,000 EUR) That’s amazing! Dominic is a very lucky guy!
I remember Dominic used to say that this Strat was made in ’62. But recently I’ve seen various articles saying it was made in ’61. So I don’t know which is true. But recently, both Dominic and Richie have been saying that this guitar is from 1961, so I guess that’s when it was made. However, I don’t think it matters to him whether it was made in ’61 or ’62. Dominic is a man with an extraordinary obsession with sound, but he’s very different from someone who is obsessed with equipment. You can see the difference, can’t you? So it makes no difference to him what year it was made. ……
For Dominic, the most important thing is how beautiful the sound can be with the touch of the flesh of his right hand fingers, and how many different ways he can express himself. In fact, Dominic is not the type to give detailed instructions on microphone or PA positions, preferring to leave it to the engineer. He just wants to be able to produce the ideal sound himself. Dominic Miller is a musician who pursues this.I don’t think that should ever be misunderstood. That’s why he often plays electric guitar with his fingers instead of using a pick. Also, according to Dominic, this 61 Strat ‘sounds like glass’. Does he mean a transparent, delicate and clean sound?
*Some information and photos about this guitar were taken from the Instagram account @stingthegear.