Flashback to 2007 — I was a fresh-faced college student and instead of having a social life, my evenings were consumed by playing Guitar Hero with my friends. It never quite felt the same as playing my real guitar, but it definitely got the vibe of playing a concert in your living room down to a tee.
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Fast forward to CES 2025, and I stood in the middle of CES Unveiled playing Creep by Radiohead on the LiberLive C1 to a small audience. This is a stringless smart guitar, and I have to admit, it scratched that same Guitar Hero itch that has long been left behind for nearly two decades. Let me tell you all about this $499 gadget.
One man band
The C1 is quite the alluring axe of musical power — foldable and portable at 3.9 pounds and slightly smaller than your usual 22-fret electric guitar. For those getting started with your first musical instrument, this is a great kick off point with interactive chord sheets and instructions via the app, and LED indicators along the neck.
Just tap the corresponding fret and strum. The velocity of your strumming technique is measured too so you can either play softly for those emotional moments of thrash away to your heart’s content. Also, if you’re a bit of a metal head like me, there’s a fingerpicking pad for if you wanted to get into tapping melodics.
All of this is presented in impressive fidelity thanks to a combination of a 3-inch Mid-woofer, 0.8-inch tweeter and 180mm bass-boosted wind tunnel — giving you impressive depth while preserving the shining highs of your performance
But the real beauty is when you stop thinking of this as just a guitar and get into it being an all-in-one band. The C1 has a built-in drum machine and bassline that can be activated with a tap. The LED indicator shows you the tempo, which you can control by tapping at whatever pace you want to speed up or slow down your composition.
On top of that, the more advanced features give you a huge variety of tools to play around with and create. The multiple buttons across the neck give you access to 72 custom chords, you can change the sound that is outputted to guitar, piano or bass, and the rotatable switch on the neck gives you a full 12-key transposition if you wanted to switch up mid-song.
Plus, with MicroDAW Sampling Synthesis Technology, you can get into custom sampling different sounds and pairing them altogether.
Outlook
With versatility of being a great way to get started all the way up to more advanced interactions, the LiberLive C1 is a fascinating little digital instrument that you can find yourself having a lot of fun with.
My hands-on time was supposed to only be for a minute, but a long annoyed queue formed as I was reliving my Guitar Hero days and performing to my heart’s content. There’s a lot of cool tech coming out of CES 2025, but this is definitely one of the more fun gadgets I’ve played around with here!
