The Dirt Monger Instruments Night Serpent is an analog pedal that combines four functions in one box: preamp, distortion, switching and boost. RockBoard's PedalPedia describes it as "an Integrated Preamp inspired clean boost designed to be ran in your signal chain before an amp," meaning it is built to drive the front end of a guitar amplifier rather than act as a stand-alone amp sim1. Players looking at this kind of circuit will also find it filed under Preamp Pedals, Distortion Pedals, Switching Pedals and Boost Pedals.
What it does
The Night Serpent's core idea is headroom. The pedal uses "a modern charge pump circuit to increase the 9 volt input to a stable 32 volts to add more headroom to the EQ section"1. A charge pump is a small circuit that steps a low supply voltage up to a higher one internally, so a pedal running from a standard 9 volt supply can operate its tone circuit at more than three times that voltage. In practice, more headroom in the EQ section means the tone controls can be pushed harder before the circuit itself starts to clip, which is why the maker positions it as a clean boost ahead of an amp: the pedal shapes and pushes the signal, and the amp supplies the dirt.
Power and practical notes
The pedal runs from a 9V DC, center negative supply, the standard for pedalboard power1. Because the charge pump does the voltage step-up internally, no special higher-voltage supply is called for on the face of the maker's description.
The maker's listing gives the pedal's width as 000.00 mm and does not state its depth, height or weight1.
Videos
Dirt Monger Instruments
Dirt Monger Instruments
Louis Torres
Sources (1)
- Night Serpent by Dirt Monger Instruments, RockBoard PedalPedia, 2026