Kirk Hammett

• Wah pedal in the "on" position at heel or toe acts as a tone filter — learn to park it
• EMG 81 bridge pickup: tighter, more compressed attack than passive pickups at high gain
• Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Modern mode: gain at 7, master at 4 — tight and punishing
• Wah-laden pentatonic patterns: pick and wah simultaneously for the classic Kirk phrasing
• Open-string pull-offs create the snaking chromatic runs through solos
• Riff technique: downstroke-heavy palm muting with the wrist close to the bridge
• Tremolo bar dips for dramatic accents at phrase endings — fast dip, immediate return
• Delay: 300ms at low mix on solos gives depth without muddying fast runs
• Study "Fade to Black" solo and "One" for the range from melodic to aggressive
• The wah pedal is often used at a fixed position rather than swept — Hammett holds the wah at a mid-position to filter the tone to a specific nasal peak rather than continuously sweeping. This static filtering is as important as the dynamic sweeping in defining his rhythm tone
• The ESP/LTD guitar's 24-fret neck enables access to notes above the 22nd fret used in solos like 'One' — specific solo climaxes require notes at the 24th fret (two octaves above open). A 22-fret guitar cannot play these notes and requires position compromises that change the phrasing
• Study the dynamic contrast between 'Fade to Black' and 'Battery' — both are Metallica, but the former demonstrates clean arpeggiation and melodic soloing while the latter is pure thrash aggression. Hammett's vocabulary spans both extremes, and building each style independently is the practice priority

Kirk Hammett defined the lead guitar vocabulary of thrash metal — wah-soaked pentatonic runs, Mesa Boogie high gain and a sense of drama in every solo. His KH-2 signature ESP through a Dual Rectifier is the template for aggressive, expressive metal lead playing.

Hammett's lead tone is defined by the Dunlop Crybaby wah — almost every significant solo in Metallica's catalogue runs through one. The combination of ESP guitars, Mesa Boogie amplification, and liberal wah use creates a singing, vocal quality that offsets Hetfield's percussive rhythm work.