James Hetfield Rig

James Hetfield is Metallica's co-founder, rhythm guitarist, and lead vocalist, and the percussive mid-scooped downpick chug on Master of Puppets is still the template for modern metal rhythm guitar. He cut Kill 'Em All on a white Electra 2236 Flying Wedge, a Japanese Gibson Flying V copy, into Marshall heads with a Pro Co RAT, then snapped that neck in 1984 and switched to a white 1984 Gibson Explorer. The classic tone locked when he and Kirk Hammett adopted Mesa/Boogie Mark IIC+ (and rare factory IIC++ CrunchBerries) heads with EMG 81/60 pickups, then ESP MX-220 Explorers such as the Eet Fuk guitar for ...And Justice for All.

On the Black Album and Load tours the live rack became Mesa TriAxis preamps into Strategy and 2:90 power amps, and around St. Anger he added Diezel VH4 heads while playing the relic'd ESP Truckster and Ken Lawrence custom Explorers. After the 2013 Antarctica show, tech Chad Zaemisch retired those analog racks for Fractal Axe-Fx units that model the Mesa/Diezel blend plus a Roland JC-120 clean; the M72 tour runs Axe-Fx III into stage hotspots, not miked stacks. He still records with the old IIC++ and a Jose-modded Marshall, but onstage the main guitars are ESP Snakebytes, the ESP Vulture built for 72 Seasons, and Electra V copies for the early songs, all with his EMG JH Het Set.