James Hetfield

This advertisement states that Hetfield has used Ernie Ball Power Slinkys since 1988.

James Hetfield was seen using a Shure Super 55 microphone, featuring a black casing and red grille, in a photo shared by Metallica on Instagram during the Rock in Roma event.

Thumbnail of the video and throughout. He's been using the Limited Edition for a long time, including Kirk and Robert ones for the backing vocals.

The "Unforgiven" is the actual touring acoustic guitar of James Hetfield. It's a custom-made guitar designed in Milan, Italy. Black top with a finish made with pyrography. It's actually a Line 6 Variax 700 Acoustic with some of the lyrics and scenes from the Unforgiven II song and videoclip.

Used on “Ride the Lightning” as a replacement for the ProCo Rat which was stolen in 1984.

The official Metallica website has a list of equipment used by each band member during their 2010 tours. For the front-man and rhythm guitarist of Metallica, James Hetfield, They list the Mesa/Boogie Triple Rectifier Guitar Amp Head.

In this picture James Hetfield can be seen playing through a Diezel VH4 live on Howard Stern. Link to the video -

https://youtu.be/tW4frZE4pfI

Used on “Kill ’em All” in combination with a modified Marshall.

In this image we can see James playing one of his custom Ken Lawrence Explorers. The guitar is also listed on Metallica's official website.

This article says that James used a modded Marshall JCM800 in conjunction with a Pro Co Rat distortion pedal.

James used the Mark IIC+ on Master of Puppets and And Justice For All...

On this photo from 1984 or 1985 you can see the MarkIIC+ in the background.

This image of Hetfield's rig is from a November 2011 article found on mesaboogie.com. His Line 6 DM4 Distortion Modeler can be seen in a slide-out drawer, above his Triaxis preamps (original source: http://mesaboogie.com/news/2011/11/metallica-live-rigs/).

The Roland JC120 has been a main part of James's clean sound since the recording of Master Of Puppets. He still uses it today.

James used this guitar to record the intro on “The Unforgiven II” from the 1997 album “Reload”, and it was seen in the music video for the song.

The guitar is a mid 90s reissue of the 1952 Fender Telecaster, featuring ash body and maple neck. It is custom fitted with a B-Bender system, which allows you to mechanically bend the B-string up a whole tone to C-sharp.

One of the only videos where we see James Hetfield using a Fender Stratocaster.

An earlier stillshot of the Guitar can be seen here.

In a user-uploaded photo on Photobucket, James Hetfield's touring rig includes the MXR M107 Phase 100 pedal, indicating its use during performances.

In this video by TC Electronic, Chad Zaemisch, James Hetfield’s guitar tech, describes his live rig. At 3:50 in the video he says:

I’ve got a basic heavy, clean, and leads sounds. The lead is pretty much the heavy sound, and I add a Klon in there.

The interviewer follows up and asks if it’s a real one.

Yes. Yeah, we have real stuff around here.

In this Dunlop advertisement, James Hetfield references using the Tortex .88mm picks by saying:

Master of Puppets? Cut it and it would bleed Tortex green.

James had a king v a year before Dave did, and used it throughout most of the master of puppets album and tour, but snapped the neck in later years and never had it repaired.

This Guitar, a 1963 Gibson SG was given to Hetfield as a gift by then-producer Bob Rock. This Guitar has a Mahogany Neck and Rosewood Fretboard. The guitar appears to have an uncovered Maestro-Style Tremolo Bridge and the Pickups are most likely the stock 1963 Humbuckers however this is unclear.

This Guitar was used in the Music Video for “Turn the Page”.

This guitar was used as one of James’ main guitars for the album St.Anger released in 2003, both in studio and for the tour. It was most likely brand new.

The guitar features matte black finish and tarnish metal pickguard. Rest of the specs were transferred over from his earlier guitars, including EMG pickups and Tune-o-Matic bridge.

James can be seen with this guitar at 0:32.

The guitar was James' first ESP guitar. He bought the guitar around c.1987 and used it to record parts of And Justice For All. James added the EET FUK logo in 1988 while finishing up the master recording for the album it also sports middle finger inlays. This was his main axe through out the damaged justice tour. He retired this guitar right before the black album was recorded and he now uses as a recording guitar. He used the guitar to "warm up" for practice sessions during the recordings of Death Magnetic.

This was James' first Guitar.

James bought this Guitar from a friend from high school who played with him in the school’s jazz band. His mother helped him out with the payment, which was around $200.

James used this Guitar to write some of his first songs and while playing in couple of high school bands. He would Later trade this guitar for his iconic, ''ELECTRA'' flying v copy.

The Headstock of this guitar can possibly be seen here.

From a November 2011 article found on mesaboogie.com:

"The core of the preamp switching and FX integration happens via Mesa/Boogie Amp Switchers controlled with Digital Music Corp.’s GCX Expander switching units. The Boogie amps being switched are two Triaxis Preamp’s run into a 2:90 Power amp. One Triaxis is set to the Mark IIC+ mode while the second Triaxis is used for clean sounds in the Green Clean mode. Like Kirk, James also has DBX Quad gates and T.C. Electronic G Major FX Processors along with a few extra pedals kept in the rack. The signal runs out of the 2:90 into two Mesa Traditional Straight 4x12s for a true stereo mix." (original source: http://mesaboogie.com/news/2011/11/metallica-live-rigs/)

James has this strap on most of his guitars

In this Guitar Center video, Metallica's James Hetfield discusses how he became a musician, and his rise to fame. Throughout the video, he can be seen playing riffs on his one of his signature ESP guitars, the Iron Cross James Hetfield Signature Electric Guitar (Snow White color).

Hetfield goes into some details on some of the principles behind building this guitar: "…I wanted to play drums on guitar pretty much so I wanted a really percussive sound. One that really reacts quickly and is punchy, but also if you hang on a chord, it’s gonna fill the room.

I wanted a Les Paul shape that was a little lighter, a little more road-worthy. This has a little cut-out for me. I like to wear my guitars pretty low, this has a little more sharpness to it, I can get up a little higher even though, you know, you don’t want to hear me solo.

I've tested - probably - I think we went through about 30 different kinds of poles, different kinds of windings, different kinds of metals. I wanted a traditional look, but also have an active pickup. So combining passive and active together - smooth distortion, but with some aggressive mids that some of the passive pickups have. They’re a little more focused in the mids and there they're pushy, which I like. But the warmness, and the wideness of the active pickup. So combining those two together was the challenge.

And that's what I want in a guitar sound - but not abrasive - something that's gonna give you complete ear fatigue after a concert."

James Hetfield is known to have used a Seymour Duncan Invader SH-8 pickup on early albums. A user-uploaded photo shows the Invader in the bridge position of his guitar.

Back in the early 80's James Hetfield used a modified Marshall JMP 2203 (the amp which later became the JCM800 2203) he used this amplifier up until 1984 because it got stolen. After the amp got stolen, James bought a JCM800 2203 and had it modified.
These amplifiers can be seen on a lot of live footage of the early Metallica days as well as on the documentary "Some Kind Of Monster" You cab see the amplifier in this picture as well. https://www.flickr.com/photos/dyingindowney/2432208001

In this photo taken from an Ultimate-Guitar article, James Hetfield can be seen playing the little seen Gibson Moderne.