Kirk Hammett

Listed on his page on the Metallica website.

12:30 His tech Justin Crew switched the neck pickup to a 60A (Alnico) in combination with a 81 in the bridge... This set is installed on the KH-2 Purple Spark...

Kirk Hammett has been ripping up solos for Metallica for over 30 years. Riffs on Ride the Lighting, Master of Puppets, and the Black Album are a must learn for all rock guitarists. For Kirk, his tone starts with EMG pickups. “Metallica’s crunch sound is often cleaner than people expect”, says Kirk. “My taste in tone has definitely changed over the years. I don’t like to use as much distortion these days—I prefer my tone to be nice and crisp”. The new Kirk Hammett Bone Breaker set is the result of taking the success of Metallica tone and adding some new elements without sacrificing gain for clean or vice-versa. By making slight pre-amp adjustments and combining Alnico 5 and Ceramic magnets the perfect tone-beast was created. The Bone Breaker set consist of the BB-B Ceramic bridge and the BB-N Alnico 5 neck pickups. If you are looking for rhythm or lead tone, the Kirk Hammett Bone Breaker set offers crisp crushing leads or smooth rounded rhythm tone at the flip of the selector switch.

Kirk uses Floyds on most of his guitars.

Kirk Hammett used a DiMarzio DP100 Super Distortion as the bridge pickup in his 1978 Fender Stratocaster, as confirmed in the Gibson TV episode "The Collection: Kirk Hammett of Metallica."

According to the official Gibson site, Kirk Hammett uses the Gibson "T-Top" Patent # Humbucker 60s/70s in his 1979 Gibson Flying V.

Kirk Hammett uses the EMG 85 Active Alnico Humbucker pickup, as evidenced by his description of his 1989 Les Paul Custom on Instagram. Hammett notes that this guitar, which he played live during the "And Justice For All" tour, was modified by his tech with various hardware adjustments. The modification details and the guitar's use over decades strongly indicate the presence of the EMG 85 pickups. This information was shared by Kirk Hammett in a post on January 23, 2024.

Kirk Hammett has been confirmed to use the Bigsby B7 Vibrato as part of his gear after purchasing a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard equipped with this vibrato system. This information is detailed on the My Les Paul Forum under the thread titled "Kirk Hammett Purchases Rare Les Paul."