HomeGuitar roadmap

Player Roadmaps

A guitar roadmap written around your goal

Write a paragraph about the guitarist you want to be. Riff Quest turns it into phases and steps, and ties every step to something you can do today: an exercise in the app, a few video lessons picked for that exact step, or a song from the library.

Build your roadmapRead a real one

Player Roadmaps open with a donation of any size, for life. Everything else in Riff Quest is free.

phases per roadmap
6–8
phases per roadmap
steps per roadmap
29–46
steps per roadmap
of steps with lessons
92%
of steps with lessons

Goal · Intermediate

Metallica / James Hetfield

“Metal rhythm guitar like James Hetfield: relentless alternate and downpicking, palm-muted gallops, tight power-chord riffs and syncopated accents, working through Enter Sandman, Master of Puppets, Seek & Destroy and One.”

Reading the goal8 phases · 38 steps · 4 songs
  1. 01The Hetfield Pulse
  2. 02Riff Language
  3. 03Accents and Meter
  4. 04The Sound
  5. 05Enter Sandman
  6. 06Seek & Destroy
  7. 07One
  8. 08Master of Puppets
  • Exercise
  • Song
  • Lessons
  • Start here

How it gets made

From one paragraph to a plan you can open

A roadmap is not one long answer from a chatbot. It is written in stages, each one checking the last, and nothing reaches you until every step has something to practise.

  1. You describe the goal

    A title and a paragraph in your own words: who you want to sound like, which songs you are after, what you want your hands to be able to do. Add your level, the artists you love and what you can already play if you like.

  2. A check and a few questions, before anything is spent

    A quick read of the goal comes first. If it is not about guitar, or too vague to plan, it says so and nothing is charged. Otherwise it asks up to 5 questions, such as which songs to build towards or where to start, and any of them can be skipped.

  3. A draft, then a second opinion

    The phases are drafted first. A separate review pass then reads the draft against your goal and your answers, and rewrites what does not hold up before a single step is written out.

  4. Every step gets its kit

    Each step is written out and matched with an exercise from the Riff Quest library. For the lessons, a judge reads up to 30 indexed videos and keeps the three at most that teach this exact step. When none fits, it searches YouTube for one that does. Songs you named get steps of their own when they are in the song library.

  5. Ready while you were away

    Writing takes a few minutes and runs on our servers, not in your browser. Close the tab: a notification tells you when the roadmap is waiting.

A real roadmap

Every phase, every step, as a player got it

This is a real public roadmap, word for word: the player's goal first, then the plan it became. Songs are marked where they come in.

01

The Hetfield Pulse

7 steps
  1. Downpicked eighth-note engine3
  2. Alternate-picked low-E sixteenths3
  3. Down-up gallop rotation3
  4. Muted notes and open accents3
  5. Pick depth near the bridge2
  6. Enter Sandman main-riff restsEnter Sandman1
  7. Pedal rhythms by ear
02

Riff Language

4 steps
  1. Master of Puppets opening shiftsMaster of Puppets3
  2. Seek & Destroy opening articulationSeek & Destroy3
  3. Minor-second and tritone targets2
  4. Chord punches and rests by ear2
03

Accents and Meter

5 steps
  1. Moving sixteenth-note accents3
  2. One machine-gun groupingOne3
  3. Master of Puppets shortened barsMaster of Puppets3
  4. Straight and triplet gears3
  5. Silent-click riff test
04

The Sound

4 steps
  1. High-gain reference matching3
  2. Clean reference matching3
  3. E standard against album pitch
  4. Double-tracked rhythm takes3
05

Enter Sandman

4 steps
  1. Dry-tone section accuracyEnter Sandman3
  2. Reduced-tempo arrangementEnter Sandman3
  3. Album-tempo riff and chorusEnter Sandman3
  4. Recorded full rhythm takeEnter Sandman3
06

Seek & Destroy

4 steps
  1. Dry-tone section accuracySeek & Destroy3
  2. Reduced-tempo arrangementSeek & Destroy3
  3. Album-tempo verse and chorusSeek & Destroy3
  4. Recorded full rhythm takeSeek & Destroy3
07

One

4 steps
  1. Clean arpeggio accuracyOne3
  2. Reduced-tempo clean-to-heavy changesOne3
  3. Album-tempo machine-gun sectionOne3
  4. Recorded full rhythm takeOne3
08

Master of Puppets

6 steps
  1. Dry-tone riff accuracyMaster of Puppets3
  2. Reduced-tempo full arrangementMaster of Puppets
  3. Album-tempo downpicked sectionsMaster of Puppets3
  4. Interlude-to-heavy transitionMaster of Puppets3
  5. Recorded full rhythm takeMaster of Puppets3
  6. Four-song Metallica set3

Inside a step

Something to play, not something to read about

Open any step and it tells you what to do with your hands, for how long, and how to know you are done. This one opens phase 2 of Metallica / James Hetfield, unedited.

  • What, why and how
    What the skill is, why your goal needs it, and how to practise it, with tempos and bar counts rather than pep talk.
  • When it counts as done
    A finish line you can check yourself, so you know when to move on instead of guessing.
  • An exercise you can open
    A drill from the Riff Quest library, one click from the step, ready to play in a practice session.
  • Lessons picked for that step
    Videos from teachers on YouTube, chosen for this step rather than for the topic in general. Watch one in the app and it ticks itself off.

Phase 2 · Riff Language · step 1 of 4

Master of Puppets opening shifts

What it is

Chromatic palm-muted single-note runs that snap into open power-chord hits and accented held chords in the first bars of "Master of Puppets."

Why it matters

You must move cleanly from fast alternate-picked, palm-muted sixteenths into fretted power chords without string noise or timing drift.

How to practice

Play Riff Vault — Master of Puppets and listen for the exact moment the palm-muted run ends and the power chord sounds. Practice the excerpt in two parts: 8 bars of only palm-muted chromatic picking, then 8 bars of only the power-chord accents. Then link them and play the full excerpt, watching that each shift lands on the beat and each power chord rings cleanly.

Done when

Play the Riff Vault — Master of Puppets excerpt looped at 140 BPM with palm-muted notes on the low strings clean and even, snap into each power chord with full ringing notes and no audible fret buzz, and change from muted run to chord within one 16th-note window for 12 consecutive repeats.

Practice kit

Master of PuppetsMetallica · song library

Riff Vault — Master of Puppetsexercise

Lessons

  • Mastering Palm Muting On Guitar: A Comprehensive GuideTim Holman · 15:54
  • Advanced Palm Muting Concepts - Modern Metal Rhythm Guitar, Lesson 4Kevin Goetz · 5:42
  • Mastering Galloping Metal Rhythms – Play Tight, Aggressive Guitar RiffsJason Stallworth · 18:23

In the app

A map you walk, not a list

Phases run down the middle, steps branch off them, and the next step to play sits at the top. A step opens in a drawer beside the map, so you never lose your place.

The Metallica / James Hetfield roadmap in Riff Quest two steps in: the first two steps of The Hetfield Pulse done, Down-up gallop rotation in progress and offered as Continue, Riff Language nextThe step drawer for Down-up gallop rotation: what it is, why it matters, how to practise it, when you have got it, then the Gallop Picking exercise and three video lessons, two of four ticked off

What it costs, and why

The one part of Riff Quest that runs on donations

Every roadmap is written by an AI model, and every run costs real money. So Player Roadmaps open with a donation of any size, once and for life, with no subscription. The donation becomes tokens, and tokens pay for the writing.

  • Public roadmap

    Shows up for other supporters, who can start it too.

    25tokens

  • Private roadmap

    Only you see it. Dearer, because nobody else learns from it.

    30tokens

  • Fix one step

    Rewrite it, swap its exercise, look for lessons or the song again.

    1token

  • Add a step to a phase

    Up to 2 at a time.

    2tokens

  • Remove a step, or start someone else's roadmap

    Costs the app nothing, so it costs you nothing.

    Free

Every $1 donated adds 10 tokens and the supporter badge comes with 10. Tokens never expire, and a roadmap that fails to generate is refunded.

Why it exists

Knowing who you want to sound like is not a plan

The question that cost me the most practice time was never how to play something. It was what to play next. I knew whose records I wanted to sound like, and I still sat down most evenings with forty minutes, a metronome and no idea where to start.

When I put together the first artist roadmaps for Riff Quest by hand, the slow part was not finding lessons. It was the order: which picking-hand skill has to come before which riff, and where the songs belong. Player Roadmaps do that job for any goal, the way I would: draft the order, have it questioned, then tie every step to something you can open and play.

It costs money every time it runs, which is why it sits behind a donation while the rest of the app does not. I would rather say that plainly than dress it up as a premium tier.

Michael Apfel

Michael Apfel

Guitarist & Creator of Riff Quest

Frequently asked questions

Rather follow a fixed path than write your own? Every stage of the free one is on its own page: The guitar learning path

Is it free?

Riff Quest itself is free, with no paywalls. Player Roadmaps are the one exception: every roadmap is written by an AI model that costs real money per run, so they open with a donation of any size, for life, with no subscription. A public roadmap then costs 25 tokens and a private one 30.

Does it make up exercises or songs?

No. Exercises come only from the Riff Quest library. A step is tied to a song only when that song is in the song library, so it opens with a tab and a backing track. The lessons are real YouTube videos, picked step by step.

What if a step is wrong for me?

Open the roadmap in refine mode and fix that step: have it rewritten, swap its exercise, or look for lessons or the song again for 1 token each. Adding a step costs 2, removing one is free.

How do I tick off a step?

Open the step, play its exercise and tick it, and watch its lessons in the app, which ticks them for you. A step with nothing to play can be marked done by hand. The map colours every step as not started, in progress or done.

Can I use a roadmap someone else made?

Yes. Supporters can open any public roadmap and start it for free. The plan stays the author's, the progress is yours. Private roadmaps never show up for anyone but their owner.

How long does it take to write one?

A few minutes. It runs on our servers, so you can leave the page or close the tab and come back when the notification arrives.

Tell it who you want to sound like.

Build your roadmap

Free account first. Player Roadmaps then open with a donation of any size, made with the same email.