I struggled with sound all my life. It seems I could never get the right sound. I always use distortion.
One day a friend pointed out to me that whenever you use a distortion pedal you need to make sure the amp is clean. If yo play the amp dirty and then turn up the distortion it will sound like crap.
Maybe this is obvious to other people, but I did not know this at the time. Since then I always leave the amp clean and then switch my distortion on/off. It sounds much better.
One more thing....in all my years of using distortion pedals I went out and got a LINE/6 for $250.00 and the "heavy distortion" setting totally kicks ass. It has a sound like no other.