Andy James Synthwave Licks

Hi GMC!

Welcome to this new lesson!

In this one I'll cover the style of Andy James. Born in England, Andy is one of the most amazing modern metal shredders out there. He is not only a shred machine, he also can compose the most memorable melodies and instrumental metal tracks. He is well known because of his guitar teaching, but he has many solo albums, and recently joined the mainstream metal band Five Finger Death Punch.

Some weeks ago, our dear instructor Todd Simpson suggested to start a Synthwave collab. For this reason, I decided to work on a backing track inspired by the synthwave band The Midnight, but also inspired by Andy's recent album C.S.I.L. That's the backing that I've used to record this lesson that includes 6 phrases inspired by AJ.

Each of the phrases cover an essential element from Andy's playing:


Phrase 1: Andy's melodic phrasing. Use of vibrato and pinch harmonics.

Phrase 2: How he builds longs musical ideas combining arpeggios connected with legato, slides and alternate picking.

Phrase 3: Use of bending, octaves in a melodic way, and fast picking inspired by Petrucci.

Phrase 4: Harmonized melody + Shredding arpeggios and triads.

Phrase 5: Open strings used as pedal note. Pentatonic shred inspired by Zakk Wylde.

Phrase 6: Tapping technique.



Key: A minor

Chord progression:

| F | Am | F | Am |


Guitar tone:

To record guitars, I’ve used Neural DSP Archetype Plini with the following settings:










Download all my Neural DSP’s presets HERE.


Scales used: