Even to this day, he’s praised for his style of playing and not everyone can copy his exact style. And it was especially Hetfield’s riffs that changed the game, especially with his pretty tight downstroke picking technique and very clever use of palm muting. However, what made quite a huge impact on metal music were the band’s heavy, tight, and fast riffs played by James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett. Giving new life to metal music, Metallica combined the music of two different worlds, and along with some other American bands, laid foundations for what was labeled as “thrash metal” by the music press and big record labels.
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Although living in the United States, they were mostly inspired by European bands. Metallica was formed in the early 1980s by young and ambitious Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield. It’s been confirmed sometime in the early 2010s that he had it in his live rig, along with Line 6 DM4, although it’s not certain whether he still uses it. However, James has, or had, a slightly more advanced version, the M107 Phase 100 model. MXR is famous for its phaser pedals, especially the classic Phase 90. It’s also fitted with two very powerful 12-inch speakers that can work in stereo mode. It’s also very well-known for its chorus and vibrato effects circuitry, providing a very “spacious”-sounding effect. Both channels come with two inputs and an additional “bright” switch that adds some high-ends into the mix. This is a solid-state amp that comes with two channels, although it’s better-known for the clean one. The amp was introduced back in the 1970s and its circuitry remains almost unchanged even to this day. Therefore, starting with the “Justice” album, all of James’ clean sections are played through Roland’s legendry Jazz Chorus amp. Although you’d expect a metal guitarist to use something heavier, these proved to be pretty useful for clean sections. Many sound aficionados have branded this device as one of the key components for everyone looking to achieve the crushing Metallica guitar tone of the 1980s thrash metal era.īack when Metallica began recording the “…And Justice for All” album, James truly got into the crystal clear and controlled tone of Roland’s JC-120 Jazz Chorus amp. It was one of the most diverse amps of the era, although it eventually became really popular among lovers of heavy and tight tones.
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Aside from having two channels, the amp also had an additional 5-band graphic equalizer for more detailed tone shaping. This particular model served as a blueprint for some of Mesa Boogie’s most advanced amps. Of course, the band kept using it on the “Justice” album, although the resulting tone was different, mostly due to the final mix of the record. Working with producer Flemming Rasmussen, they took time to tweak the tone and perfect it, which is what we can hear on the “Master of Puppets” album. You don’t often see a single piece of gear changing the game for one band’s career, but the pretty tight tone of Mesa Boogie’s Mark IIC+ was so powerful that it helped them create one of the albums that eventually ended up in The Library of Congress. Now, this is where things took a completely different turn for Metallica.
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When most people ask what guitar does James Hetfield plays one of his explorer styles guitars, such as this Ken Lawrence model, comes to mind. This was during the band’s “Load” and “Reload” era, which was met with somewhat mixed reactions from the fans but saw James utilize different sounds and techniques compared to the group’s full-on thrash metal period of the 1980s. You can see him using this second one on a lot of Metallica’s live shows, so it has seen a lot of action over the years. He got the second one in the early 2000s, and this instrument features a Bubinga top, as well as some rather stylish fretboard inlays. However, James has at least two of these Explorers. It was initially fitted with EMG 81 and 60 active humbucker pickups, although he later swapped them with his signature EMG-JH humbuckers.
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The first instrument he built for him was a pretty-looking explorer with a mahogany body, mahogany neck, and a unique-looking headstock. But Hetfield’s cooperation with Ken goes way back to the mid-1990s.