I like to play straight with with no effects too (most of the time), it sounds like you probably have too much gain going on. The pedal probably has all the gain you need so I would start by backing the amp gain off a lot and the pedal gain just a little if you're at full bore and see what that does for you.
Don Madison goes into just this at the beginning of his tutorial on getting a good Metal sound, gave me some good tips:
http://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=12627&s_id=718
check it out!
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