My Guitar Heroes

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#1. Michael Angelo Batio

Michael Angelo Batio (pronounced /ˈbeɪti.oʊ/, also known as Mike Batio or MAB) (born in 1956) is an American Progressive Rock, heavy metal guitarist and columnist from Chicago, Illinois. Batio was voted the "No. 1 Shredder of All Time" by Guitar One Magazine in 2003. He was also listed as one of the "Top 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists of All Time" by Guitar World Magazine, for which he wrote the column Time to Burn, and one of the "20 Greatest Shredders of All Time" by Total Guitar Magazine, both in April 2008. Batio also won the 2009 Guitar World Magazine Readers Choice award in the "Best Shredder" category.

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#2. Paul Gilbert

Paul Brandon Gilbert (born November 6, 1966 in Illinois, USA) is an American guitarist. He is well known for his guitar work with Racer X and Mr. Big, as well as many solo albums. He also joined Joe Satriani and John Petrucci on the 2007 G3 tour.

He has been voted number 4 on a list in GuitarOne magazine of the "Top 10 Greatest Guitar Shredders of All Time", as well as a spot in Guitar World's 50 Fastest Guitarists of All Time list.

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#3. Alexi Laiho

Alexi (WildChild) Laiho (born Markku Uula Aleksi Laiho; April 8, 1979) is a Finnish singer, composer, and guitarist. He is best known for being the lead guitarist as well as lead vocalist for heavy metal band Children of Bodom, and he is also the guitarist for Sinergy and Kylähullut. He has previously played with Thy Serpent and Impaled Nazarene on occasion, as well as Warmen and Hypocrisy.

Guitar World magazine has ranked him as one of the 50 fastest guitarists in the world.

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#4. Buckethead

An instrumentalist, Buckethead is best known for his electric guitar playing. He has been voted number 8 on a list in GuitarOne magazine of the "Top 20 Greatest Guitar Shredders of All Time" as well as being included in Guitar World's lists of the "25 all-time weirdest guitarists" and is also known for being in the "50 fastest guitarists of all time list".

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#5. John Petrucci

John Peter Petrucci (born July 12, 1967) is an American guitarist and songwriter best known as a founding member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater. Along with his former bandmate Mike Portnoy, he has produced all Dream Theater albums since their 1999 release, Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory. He is also a backing vocalist for Dream Theater. Petrucci was named as the third player on the G3 tour six times, more than any other invited guitarist. In 2009 he was named the No. 2 best metal guitarist (behind Dave Mustaine) by Joel McIver in his book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists.

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#6. John 5

John William Lowery (born July 31, 1971 in Grosse Pointe, Michigan), better known by his stage name John 5, is an American guitarist. His stage name was bestowed on him in 1998 when he joined industrial metal group Marilyn Manson as their guitarist, taking over from Zim Zum. He is currently the guitarist for Rob Zombie. He is also a solo artist having recorded five guitar albums: Vertigo (2004), Songs for Sanity (2005), The Devil Knows My Name (2007), Requiem (2008) and The Art of Malice (2010), as well as a remix album, Remixploitation (2009). He also works as a staff writer for Chrysalis Records, working with artists such as Avril Lavigne, Garbage, Meat Loaf, Scorpions, FeFe Dobson and has been writing and recording with southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.

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#7. Synyster Gates

Brian Elwin Haner, Jr. (July 7, 1981), better known by his stage name Synyster Gates or simply Syn, is an American musician, best known for being the lead guitarist of the heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold.

Haner attended Mayfair High School in Lakewood, but he later transferred and graduated from Ocean View High School in Huntington Beach, California.

He studied at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood as part of the GIT program, studying jazz guitar. After six or so months of being there, he got a phone call from The Rev asking him if he wanted to join the band as lead guitarist. Haner joined rather than continuing his education and becoming a studio musician. Up until that time he was primarily self-taught by watching music videos and reading books. His father, Brian Haner, Sr., is a songwriter and guitarist.

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#8. Herman Li

Herman Li (Chinese: 李康敏, Hanyu Pinyin: Lǐ Kāng Mǐn; born on October 3, 1976 in Hong Kong) is a British musician, best known as a guitarist for the power metal band DragonForce.His playing style consists of fast descending and ascending legato and staccato licks, exotic scalar runs, making extensive use of the harmonic minor and phygian dominant scales, extreme use of the whammy bar, quick full ascending and descending sweep picking arpeggios, alternate picking and tapping (especially two-handed) on the higher frets as well as incorporating many other shred guitar style techniques. Li is left-handed but learned to play right-handed. Recently, he has started to use a device called the Hot Hand that sits on his right hand like a ring, which causes extreme vibrato when shaken, giving him greater capacity to emulate certain video game sounds. Li has stated John Petrucci's fast guitar playing heavily inspired his own style.

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#9. Tiago Della Vega

Tiago della Vega is a Brazilian guitarist. Born in Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, he began learning to play the acoustic guitar at the age of five. After a year, he realized that the electric guitar was his greatest passion. He started to study electric guitar, practicing 14 hours a day.

Tiago della Vega played with the bands After Dark and Fermatha. At present, he travels around the world playing and doing workshops. He currently holds the Guinness World Records title as the fastest guitar player in the world, playing The Flight of the Bumblebee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at 320 beats per minute.

He plays a custom signature Andrellis 7-string guitar which has 24 frets and a Floyd Rose tremolo, the Andrellis TDV.

 
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#10. Mick Thomson

Mickael "Mick" Thomson, sometimes known as #7, is an American musician, best known as being the lead guitarist for the Grammy winning Heavy Metal band Slipknot.

Thomson commonly employs an extremely fast and accurate alternate picking technique, also implementing pinch harmonics into his work. He also utilizes sweep picking on occasion. He has admitted he found influence in bands such as Racer X, stating that it gave him something to strive for when he was young. He also cites Randy Rhoads as an influence.

Other characteristics in his playing includes tremolo picking passages, and dropped tunings.

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