Metallica Hardwired Style

Hi GMC!

Welcome to my new lesson inspired by Metallica's tenth studio album "Hardwired... Selft destruct" (2016).

Music Style:
Metallica is a very unique band. They started as a Trash/Speed Metal band, but they also recorded more Heavy and Alternative Metal sounding albums. In 2008, they decided to get back to their Thrash roots and released the album "Death Magnetic" and they has kept this direction until today. This lesson's tune features Metallica's old school Thrash style but with a more modern sound. This means that most of these riffs will remind you to albums like "And Justice for all" and "Master of Puppets".

Tonality, Chord Progression & Scales:
As most of their songs, this tune is in E minor key. We will be combining E blues scale with Phrygian and Aeolian modes. I've talked about this in my previous Thrash Metal lessons (Check them HERE) but let me remind you that the most aggressive metal sound is based on these scales. We can include Thrash, Death, Dark, Groove and many other Extreme metal subgenres. I always tell my students that songs like "Enter Sandman" by Metallica and "Cowboys from Hell" by Pantera are based on E blues scale, and most of them get surprised. It's awesome to realize how "metal" a "blues" scale can sound, isn't it??.

Techniques:
This tune is a killer metal rhythm workout that will help you improve your strength and timing control. It combines alternate, downpicking, palm muting and fast power chords shifting.

Sound:
I used Fractal Ax8's 5153 100w Blue, Cubase 10.5 to record audio and midi, Superior Drummer 3 for drums.

These are my settings:






Scale Charts: