...I need some help with my tone...

First off, my equipment is as follows:

LTD-351D
Metal Zone Distortion Pedal
50(ish) Watt Marshall Amp

I need to get my distortion to be chunky with my palm-muting, be able to clearly understand the notes, and have a smooth feeling all the way around. Using bands as a example, I want something that sounds like the Undeceived era of Extol mixed with the And Justice era of Metallica. Any suggestions?

i have a marshall mg15 and a metal zone(assuming you're using Boss of course).
these settings should help get a nice chunky sound.
i would suggest on the marshall:
bass: 8-10
mid: 2-4
high: 6-8

on the metal zone i would suggest this:
bass eq: 7-10 (there are no numbers, but guesstimate)
mid eq: 4-6
mid freq: 3-5
high eq: 7-8
put distortion at 5 or maybe up to 8. getting the gain/distortion past that makes it sound bad.

Originally posted by trendkillah
When you're playing in a band or recording: use very little distortion, crank up the mids, and keep the lows and highs out of the way of the other instruments.(which means: don't use a lot of them)

Why use little distortion?
How about if you play in a death metal band? Use litlle distortion again?

Well, in my opinion the clearness of the sound depends on the distorion you are using. For example, with my GNX1 I set the gain at about 70-80/99 and I get pretty nice sound. However this is not the case with some bad quality processors, such as Zooms, they totaly suck. I had one Zoom 505 and when I played with lots of ditortion the notes mixed in one big blur.
But you are right, it is better to use as little as possible distortion for the sake of sound.

Thankx for the help thus far. I do play Death Metal and I understand the necessity to not have the gain cranked up. I have played in a Death Metal band and have played many gigs. I'm just not used to the new equipment that I have now. (I moved out of state, and couldn't bring all my guitar equipment, so on a budget I bought more here) My main thing is just finding the best sound possible out of what I have now. I like cranking the volume up in my room, but when I do, the tone seems to get sloppy. As in, you can't clearly hear all the notes (but not because of the distortion level, which usually doesn't go over 5). It's more like my highs aren't comming out enough, but that seems to make me lose my chunkiness. That get's really aggravating as I'm sure you would all know.

Again, I appreciate all the help, and would welcome more advice.

I'm sorry...a correction from above:

It seems like my highs aren't getting through, so when I turn them up, it makes me lose my chunkiness.