Guitar Tones

Having huge trouble gettin good tone on my metal playing, I am using a Les Paul and a 15 watt practice amp with pre post gain knobs and no master volume. If I turn the distortion up, its too muggy and cant really hear anything clear. If I turn the distortion down, palm mutting just doesnt have the desired effect and no reverb whatsoever.
Any amp settings or cheap gear that cud help me?
Cheers.

If your goin for a slash tone then Id recomend a marshall AVT amp. They range from £100 to £400. The inbuilt reverb is spot on for that tone.
Also remember when playing in a high gain setting that rigth handed palm muting isnt enuff for avoiding muddy noises. Mute each string with your left hand too. Only ever hand one string ringing at once or you'll get those masty break up noises!

It's hard to get good distortion from a small amp ... You should consider a pedal or a bigger amp.

I've got a zoom 707, but I have learned the hard and frustrating way that zoom suck. Thinking bout some of the Danelectro stomp boxes with the food names. There are some distortion/overdrive ones, also would it be worth getting a 7 Eq pedal, cos I know some people like the boost the mids for solos.

For a Dist pedal I'd say go for a Boss ... An EQ pedal is a good idea too.

i got just the answer if you dont wanna buy a new bigger amp the just go get a boss metal zone pedal or a boss super overdrive pedal there probaly the best pedals u cant get for distortion in my opinion the metal zone pedal is about $79.99 and the super overdrive is about $39.99 or $49.99 i cant rember

I second for the Metal Zone.

3rd the metal zone, but try this: Pre cranked as high as it goes...then ease the post up until you have a desired tone. More pre=more distortion.

I'm from India , and here it takes a very long time till one can afford a decent amp or effect pedal. The cheapest pedal available is the BOSS DS-1 and the cheapest multi FX unit is the zoom 505 II (about twice the price of DS-1). I made the mistake of buying a 505 thinking that I would sell it later and buy some good gear. Not only is no one ready to buy it from me (when new it's unpopular as it is - second hand ones don't attract even the most broke guitarists) but its sound has deteriorated horribly. The noise reduction feature works fine for just about a year and then goes bust. My band had a gig in a competition recently, and the distorted patches for rhythm guitar were so messy sounding and hissy that after one song I had to borrow a Korg PX4 from another band.
Moral of the story? Dont catch ZOOM even if you can. You'll never get rid of it.

Originally posted by keshav dhar
Dont catch ZOOM even if you can.

:D LOL :D

yeah the metal zone is a good pedal, but I wouldn't get it to escape that "muddy" sound, cuz it's the king of that. it's also way hard to control, but hey, that'll build ur muting technique really fast =D. it's deffinately a metal sounding distortion, and it's fairly cheap. I'd go with that.

I don't even know these things are still available, since it's been a long time since I've played metal, but I used to get absolutely killer sound from an Ibanez Super Metal SM-9 pedal. The controls are very similar to a Boss DS-1, but the sound is a bit brighter, and it really cuts through.

yeah my friend has a killer ibanez pedal to its an sm pedal put i think it might be a remake of the pedal you are talking about. is the pedal your talking about one of the new ton-lok pedals?thats what kind my friend has and it sounds killer it even has a switch for a lil noise gat if you need it is called the SM smash box.