The Mo(s)ghoul by RhPf Electronics is a MOSFET distortion pedal made for guitarists seeking a high-gain, thick and textured distortion sound. It’s designed to provide a wide range of distortion tones, from subtle overdrive to full-on fuzz, which makes it versatile for various musical styles.
Rolling back the guitar volume cleans it up considerably too, so you’re not stuck with one wall of gain: dial the pedal in hot and let your volume knob do the rest of the work.
Controls
The panel is a simple five-knob layout: Drive and Level up top, then Low, Mid and Hi underneath for a proper 3-band EQ. Drive takes you from crunchy overdrive into saturated fuzz territory, and Level matches the output back to your clean signal once you’ve piled on the gain. In the demo above I’ve set up sweeps for Drive, Low, Mid and Hi, so you can hear each one working on its own before you start combining them.
The Mid control is my favorite on this pedal. It lets you boost the mids around 500Hz or cut them around 800Hz, which is a great feature for shaping your sound to cut through the mix or to create a more scooped tone. Because the EQ sits after the drive stage, you’re voicing the distortion itself rather than just filtering it, so small moves on Low, Mid or Hi noticeably change the character of the saturation, not just the tone.
How It Sounds
The presets map out how far this thing can stretch. Cutting Filth runs the drive hot with a bright top end for a saturated, aggressive edge. Chimey Crunch backs the drive off to 2 and scoops the low end, landing closer to a jangly overdrive than a distortion. Mid Push maxes out drive and mid together while pulling the low and high back, which shows off that reactive mid control doing real work. Scooped Drive sits in the middle with a gentler EQ curve, and Tight Distortion pairs maxed drive with a scooped low end and boosted highs for a focused, cutting voice. Across all of them the pedal stays responsive to pick attack and volume-knob changes rather than sounding like one fixed gain stage.
Mo(s)ghoul vs BOSS DS-1
The BOSS DS-1 is the classic reference point for distortion pedals, an op-amp and diode-clipping circuit that’s stayed essentially unchanged for decades. The Mo(s)ghoul runs a MOSFET circuit instead, which tends to feel more amp-like and dynamic under your picking hand, and it backs that up with a genuine 3-band EQ rather than the DS-1’s single tone knob. Where the DS-1 gives you one punchy, fairly fixed voice, the Mo(s)ghoul’s Low, Mid and Hi controls let you reshape the distortion itself, from scooped and jangly to mid-forward and cutting. If you want the simplicity and instant recognizability of the DS-1’s sound, that pedal still does its one thing well. If you want a distortion you can sculpt to fit a specific mix or rig, the Mo(s)ghoul gives you far more to work with.
Who It’s For
This is a pedal for players who want high-gain distortion with real EQ shaping rather than a single fixed voice, whether that’s riff-heavy rock, metal, or anything that needs a thick, textured drive tone. The reactive character, cleaning up with your guitar’s volume knob, makes it a good fit if you like working dynamics into your gain rather than switching channels. If you just want a grab-and-go, one-knob distortion, a simpler circuit like the DS-1 might suit you better; if you want to dial in exactly how scooped or mid-forward your distortion sits, the Mo(s)ghoul rewards the extra controls.
Specs
Circuit: MOSFET-based distortion with reactive characteristics
Controls: Drive, Level, Lo, Mid, Hi
True bypass
Power: 9V DC, less than 30mA current draw, 2.1mm center-negative connector
Size and weight: 70 x 125 x 60 mm, 255 g
Enclosure: 125B, Davies 1900H knobs
Signal Chain
Fidelity Guitars Stellarosa Lite II with Lollar Firebird pickups (bridge pickup)
