Line 6 DM4 Distortion Modeler

The Line 6 DM4 Distortion Modeler is a distortion effects pedal which produces realistic digital emulations of a wide range of popular distortion boxes like the Colorsound Tonebender, the RAT, Ibanez Tube Screamer and many more while also emulating a valve amp tone. It is all packaged in a heavy-duty gold-cased pedal, with a knob for selecting the type of fuzz (from 16 settings), bypass switching and 5 parameters (drive, bass, mid, treble and volume).

Steve Hackett uses a Line DM4 a lot for mimicking the sound of vintage analog fuzz boxes he used to use (which newer distortion pedals could never beat), "to get that really high upper-harmonic distortion that’s very toppy and brassy". Sometimes he combines it with a SansAmp pedal for a more valve amp-like distortion. Steve: "You can use three in series if you want an angry bee sound. Then flood it in reverb, so it’s operating very quietly and sounds like it’s tearing away in the background."

Further info

 * Sound On Sound review