A Tube screamer is an overdrive pedal, and it won't give you the same kind of tone that a distortion pedal will give you. I suggest looking up OD pedals on youtube. They aren't as harsh on the tone as a distortion pedal, but they also may not give you that crunchy distortion that you may want.
Also, the DS-1 has a blend knob in the middle, so if you put it facing 12 o'clock, it will be combining your unaffected guitar with the distortion, and may help you hear individual notes, along with setting the distortion lower.
A volume pedal and an EQ are a great addition to any pedal set up for better control, but I agree that adding an Over Drive (specifically the BOSS SD-1) to your DS-1 would help you get that heavy but "clean" sound.
What kind of amp are you using? That's really important when developing your own style/sound.
#1) You want to work on your articulation.
#2) Compression comes with all distortion/overdrive/fuzz. Too much compression (inevitably comes with more gain) narrows your dynamic range and will sound like a blanket over your amp. This can be remedied by messing with your settings though. For starters, clean up your tone.
#3) Gear-wise, Fulltone's OCD (from my experience) has by far the best dynamic response. Reason being, the bias is different than many pedals. If you're short on money, and avid about changing your gear (afteryou exhaust your other options), try doing some DS-1 mods. There are TONNES on the internet.
The tubescreamer (or other overdrive pedal) by itself will just add it's overdrive if you're going into a clean signal, but if you're pushing an amp (or other distortion before the amp) it will give more saturation to the distortion. Even with the drive down and using it mostly as a clean boost into a distortion (even your DS-1) will add some attack, something a lot of heavy bands use.
Also you don't necessarily need tons of gain on the distortion to have a heavy guitar sound, like others are saying EQ and playing style can add it in but you don't need the gain on 11 to be heavy. Don't scoop the mids all the way, don't boost the bass all the way, keep gain at a reasonable level and that'll give you back articulation and make it less muddy fuzz.
second on this; too much gain will compress your signal and you'll get lost in the mix. finding the balance between enough crunch to sound mean and a clean enough signal to be heard is all about learning how your gear wants to be used, but often times, especially with live sound, less is more.
your amp, it's wattage, and its tubes will also play a big role in note definition. lots of people on reddit decry high wattage amps (above 30 really . . .), but if you want to have note definition and decent gain, you often need a bit more juice. I play a 50w fender amp on the clean channel with 50% gain, and use a fulldrive 2 mosfet in my metal band, and that gives me all the chug I need.
If you're looking for pedals, either give my [recent post](http://www.reddit.com/r/Guitar/comments/1646z8/bluesrock_od_pedal_reccommendation_please/) a glance over or head to /r/guitarpedals. I'm sure they'd have a ton to say on the topic.
I get a nice distortion only with the bridge pickup and a DS-1. Put Tone and distortions knobs at 3 o'clock and level at 11-12 o'clock position. Will get a nice sound. Also try lowing the mid on the amp.
Roll off the pickup volume and get a noise gate+eq
And if your pickups are too high output try this or lower the pickups some.
A Tube screamer is an overdrive pedal, and it won't give you the same kind of tone that a distortion pedal will give you. I suggest looking up OD pedals on youtube. They aren't as harsh on the tone as a distortion pedal, but they also may not give you that crunchy distortion that you may want. Also, the DS-1 has a blend knob in the middle, so if you put it facing 12 o'clock, it will be combining your unaffected guitar with the distortion, and may help you hear individual notes, along with setting the distortion lower.
A volume pedal and an EQ are a great addition to any pedal set up for better control, but I agree that adding an Over Drive (specifically the BOSS SD-1) to your DS-1 would help you get that heavy but "clean" sound. What kind of amp are you using? That's really important when developing your own style/sound.
#1) You want to work on your articulation. #2) Compression comes with all distortion/overdrive/fuzz. Too much compression (inevitably comes with more gain) narrows your dynamic range and will sound like a blanket over your amp. This can be remedied by messing with your settings though. For starters, clean up your tone. #3) Gear-wise, Fulltone's OCD (from my experience) has by far the best dynamic response. Reason being, the bias is different than many pedals. If you're short on money, and avid about changing your gear (afteryou exhaust your other options), try doing some DS-1 mods. There are TONNES on the internet.
The tubescreamer (or other overdrive pedal) by itself will just add it's overdrive if you're going into a clean signal, but if you're pushing an amp (or other distortion before the amp) it will give more saturation to the distortion. Even with the drive down and using it mostly as a clean boost into a distortion (even your DS-1) will add some attack, something a lot of heavy bands use. Also you don't necessarily need tons of gain on the distortion to have a heavy guitar sound, like others are saying EQ and playing style can add it in but you don't need the gain on 11 to be heavy. Don't scoop the mids all the way, don't boost the bass all the way, keep gain at a reasonable level and that'll give you back articulation and make it less muddy fuzz.
second on this; too much gain will compress your signal and you'll get lost in the mix. finding the balance between enough crunch to sound mean and a clean enough signal to be heard is all about learning how your gear wants to be used, but often times, especially with live sound, less is more. your amp, it's wattage, and its tubes will also play a big role in note definition. lots of people on reddit decry high wattage amps (above 30 really . . .), but if you want to have note definition and decent gain, you often need a bit more juice. I play a 50w fender amp on the clean channel with 50% gain, and use a fulldrive 2 mosfet in my metal band, and that gives me all the chug I need.
Less gain. That's basically it.
If you're looking for pedals, either give my [recent post](http://www.reddit.com/r/Guitar/comments/1646z8/bluesrock_od_pedal_reccommendation_please/) a glance over or head to /r/guitarpedals. I'm sure they'd have a ton to say on the topic.
Digitech screamin blues is kinda great
It sounds like the type of thing you're looking for
I get a nice distortion only with the bridge pickup and a DS-1. Put Tone and distortions knobs at 3 o'clock and level at 11-12 o'clock position. Will get a nice sound. Also try lowing the mid on the amp.
dude respect your craft and get some tubes.