Today in guitar: Kirk Hammett plays a Gojira signature Jackson at Metallica's tour finale, Jim Root's Telecaster goes gold, and Jackson unveils a 27-fret Brandon Ellis signature

Metallica wrapped its mammoth M72 World Tour with two stadium shows at London Stadium, Gojira and Knocked Loose opening both nights (Guitar World). Kirk Hammett marked the occasion with a new addition to his collection: the Jackson Pro Plus Series Signature Christian Andreu Rhoads RR24 EVTN6, the signature model of Gojira's own guitarist, played live on "Seek & Destroy" from 1983's Kill 'Em All.

Andreu posted the moment on Instagram: "London, you fought fire with fire! Thank you Kirk for using my custom Jackson Rhoads guitar on Seek!" He called it a "dream come true." The full-circle detail is real, not spin: Hammett is one of Andreu's own guitar heroes, and part of what pulled him toward the Rhoads shape in the first place. Last year, Andreu returned a similar favor, playing Diamond Rowe's signature Jackson on his own touring rig.

The guitar itself debuted in March 2026 and is built for modern metal: a three-piece maple neck with neck-through-body construction, a graphite-reinforced truss rod, 24 jumbo stainless steel frets on an ebony fingerboard, a single Fishman humbucker, and an Evertune F6 bridge for a level of tuning stability a standard trem or hardtail cannot match.

New guitar or not, Hammett's own strings do not change. He is a long-documented Ernie Ball String Theory artist, and on record he hand-mixes two packs rather than playing a single boxed set: the plain strings from Regular Slinky RPS 2241 and the wound strings from Power Slinky RPS 2242, a combined gauge of .010 to .048 (Ernie Ball). Full breakdown of his rig, guitars and amps included, lives on our Kirk Hammett profile.

Fender brought back Jim Root's long-running signature Telecaster this week in a new Shoreline Gold finish: a gloss gold body over a satin-finished maple neck and 12-inch-radius ebony fingerboard (Guitar World). Everything else carries over from the original spec: mahogany body, EMG 60 neck and EMG 81 bridge active humbuckers, a single volume knob with a three-way blade switch, and a six-saddle string-through hardtail bridge, per Fender's own listing. It ships now, Limited Edition with a black tweed case, at $2,099.99.

Root's signature Telecaster has been his main Slipknot guitar for years, reworked from the standard Tele body shape for metal: mahogany instead of ash, active EMGs instead of single coils, string-through hardtail instead of the vintage ashtray bridge. Public sourcing on the exact debut year is inconsistent, a 2007 introduction versus a wider 2010 rollout, so we are not pinning one down here. "Fender guitars have been a cornerstone of my rig since the earliest days of Slipknot and continue to be today," Root said of the new finish. "It's the same guitar I've relied on for more than two decades, but this new finish makes it feel exciting all over again."

The strings are the part a colorway announcement never mentions. Fender ships the guitar with its own USA 250L Nickel Plated Steel set, .009 to .042, but that is not what Root actually plays. He hand-picked his own gauges in Dunlop's String Lab: .011 to .056 for Drop B, .012 to .064 for Drop A, tuning-dependent (Dunlop). Full sourced breakdown of his guitars, amps, and strings lives on our Jim Root profile.

Jackson introduced a new signature guitar for Brandon Ellis this month: the Pro Plus Series Signature Brandon Ellis Kelly KE27, a reworked version of his original Kelly built specifically for upper-register shredding (Guitar World). Ellis, formerly of The Black Dahlia Murder and now touring with Cannibal Corpse, asked for a wider fretboard above everything else: 27 jumbo stainless steel frets on a 12-inch to 16-inch compound radius maple fingerboard, up from the 24 frets on his first Jackson signature.

The rest of the spec sheet serves that same goal. A 25.1-inch scale length, shorter than the 25.5-inch scale common on most Jackson electrics, makes string bends easier without hurting intonation in low tunings, and a narrower Floyd Rose locking nut tightens up Ellis's preferred string spacing for fast runs (MusicRadar). "The KE27 has really evolved into a completely different guitar in its own right," Ellis said of the redesign. "It plays like a custom shop guitar and has a unique feel and sound all its own."

Pickups come from Seymour Duncan: Ellis's own signature Dyad Parallel Axis humbucker at the bridge, paired with a PA-STK single-coil at the neck, both run through a push and pull volume control for series and parallel switching, per Jackson's own spec sheet. That same spec sheet lists the factory strings as Nickel Plated Steel, .011 to .056 gauge, with no brand named. It is a heavy set built for the low, drop tunings common in technical death metal, and coincidentally the same numeric range Jim Root runs in Drop B earlier in this briefing, though under a different, named brand: Root's is Dunlop's own String Lab set. CYS does not carry a matching set for this exact factory spec yet, so no affiliate link here, just the number for anyone chasing the same low-tuned stability.

The Pro Plus Series Signature Brandon Ellis Kelly KE27 ships now at $2,199.99, direct from Jackson.

Walrus Audio has brought back the Lüm Texture Engine, a granular, glitch-leaning pedal it first sold as a 600-unit limited run before discontinuing it (MusicRadar). It returns in two colorways, no longer limited since the effect lives entirely in the digital domain. Features include a Stretch Engine that shifts sample rate from 0.5x to 2x, a Mode III forward and reverse reverb blend, real-time parameter control, and three onboard presets. It ships now at $279 direct from Walrus Audio.

There is no string angle here, and we are not going to force one. It is a signal-processing pedal for players chasing texture past the usual overdrive, delay, and reverb menu, not a strings story. Worth a look if that is your itch, easy to skip if you are just here for your next set of strings.