Easy (known as Casual in Guitar Hero Live) is the second least challenging difficulty level in the Guitar Hero series, after Beginner difficulty was introduced in Guitar Hero World Tour.
This difficulty level only utilizes the first three frets: Green, Red, and Yellow. In Guitar Hero Live, only the three white frets are utilized in Casual difficulty, or the three black frets if Lefty Flip is enabled. The speed of the highway is also very slow and in Guitar Hero Live, the player is unable to fail on this difficulty level for making too many mistakes.
Compared to other difficulty levels[]
Easy/Casual difficulty has the lowest amount of playable notes other than Beginner/Basic difficulty that is based on the Easy/Casual difficulty. Chords also very rarely occur on this difficulty but only 2-note adjacent chords. Furthermore, there are no bar chords on this difficulty in Guitar Hero Live since only one row of frets is being used.
On Vocals, the frequency hit range is widely increased, making it easier to play vocal lines at different pitches, and there are no diving pitches.
New Guitar Hero players, or new rhythm players in general, should start on this difficulty level and work their way it. It is more recommended than Beginner difficulty so that the player can learn how to shift to different frets to play notes in different lanes. When new players understands and can play the basic gameplay style, they should progress to Medium/Regular difficulty.
Harder than Expert?[]
Despite formerly being the lowest difficulty level in the series, players who primarily or only play Expert difficulty may have a hard time adjusting to playing notes on Easy difficulty due to the highway speed being a lot slower that notes appear to be more crunched together than what they normally play, and that they aren't playing everything they are hearing. This phenomenon may have been hinted in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock's tutorial when the God of Rock and Lou are arguing about a Guitar Battle. Lou mockingly asks, "What's it gonna be this time; 'Hit Me with Your Best Shot' on Easy?" to which the God of Rock hesitantly replies, "N-no! I've been practicing!" implying that he had trouble adjusting to Easy mode's slower pace at one point in time. Then the God of Rock suggests heading to Mt. Olympus for some "Expert DragonForce," implying that he can play 'Through the Fire and Flames' on Expert with relative ease. This is why some more experienced players choose to use Hyperspeed to Full Combo songs on Easy difficulty.
.jpg "Guitar Hero Live - The Kill on Casual difficulty (Lefty Flip).jpg (121 KB)")
