LARVA Morphing Phaser

At the Hive, we’ve always enjoyed approaching effects a little differently. When it comes to phasers, I’ve owned quite a few over the years, but only a small handful really stand out for me. I’m not a big fan of that cheesy, over-the-top 80s phaser sound. What I love is a thick, warm, vintage-style phaser—usually set at super slow speeds or when it’s dialed up for some psychedelic vibes at higher speeds.

That’s where the Larva started. The goal was to create the warmest, best-sounding phaser we possibly could, and one that works well with any instrument—guitar, bass, keys, rhodes, or synths. Then, we combined with our ramping system, something we’ve explored with the Zombee and SeaBee. This time, though, the focus was on simplicity. We didn’t want secondary controls or menus to get in the way.

So, we designed an interface that puts everything you need right up front. We created the Ramp Led indicators to make the ramping movement super clear—you can see exactly where you’re at and how it’s morphing from side to side. That whole combo turned into an intuitive, straightforward pedal that delivers beautiful, warm phase tones while also allowing for expressive, intricate movements. 

It’s all of the above! The effect toggle lets you choose between the phaser, Vibee, or just the preamp. Vibee is essentially the wet signal from the phaser modulation, and the phaser combines both wet and dry signals. The preamp is its own circuit before the modulation circuit and it’s always active in both the Phaser and Vibee modes, but you can dial it back to match your dry signal if you want it fully clean.

Yes, you can use the Larva with line-level or instrument-level signals. Just make sure to adjust the pre and master controls to dial in your desired clean or saturation level.

The Larva was designed to work with any instrument. Obviously it's rad on guitar! I personally love it on Rhodes piano and bass, but it really shines on just about anything. You’ll want to adjust the preamp and resonance controls to suit each instrument for the best tone.

For me, the preamp was essential. A lot of phasers sound thin when you turn them on, and that’s something I really wanted to avoid. The preamp helps you fatten up the tone and keep things balanced. It was inspired by the classic Moogerfooger line by Moog, which had an amazing preamp.

You can crank it for some grit if you’re looking for a lead tone and gets a very 70s psychedelic vibe. The bypass LED doubles as a meter for the preamp, turning orange and red once it starts saturating. What’s also cool is that the preamp sounds so good on its own, we made it possible to use it without the phaser. Flip the toggle all the way left, or take the depth down on one side to use just the preamp. You are welcome.

Yezzzzz!

Well... yes! For my pedal nerds and deep-diving maniacs, we added a couple of fun extras. You don’t need to use these or even know about them to get great tones from the Larva, but they’re cool little touches we included.

To access them, just hold the bypass footswitch (you’ll notice the ramp LEDs change to white while holding, indicating you’re in the alternate control mode).

1. Ramp Speed Offset: While holding the bypass, adjusting the ramp speed will change the center point of the LFO. It’s interactive with the depth control, so experiment and find where you like it.
2. Rate 2 Subdivision: While holding the bypass, Rate 2 becomes a subdivision of Rate 1 instead of a linear control. All the way down, it matches Rate 1, and as you turn it up, it starts subdividing. This is great to sync phaser one and two and play with the ramp in sync or you can think of it as tap divisions. There are 12 subdivision. If you adjust Rate 2 without holding the bypass, it returns to its regular linear function.

Both of these settings are saved when you turn the pedal off, so they’ll come back the same way when you power it on again. The pedal also remembers its last state, so if it’s in bypass or not, it will power on the same way you left it.