That "BOXY" sound

[johnlovesbeer]

Hi everyone.

 

After the best part of 3 years of battling to get what I'd call an acceptable tone (without the fizz) from my HD500x direct into the PA, I decided that IR's would be a better way to go. 

I bought myself an IR loader stomp box and WOW! I've turned my POD into a poor man's HELIX. The tone has improved drastically and sounds almost natural, like real amps for the most part.

I play in a covers band, so not including specialty sounds, I primarily use 3 main tones; CLEAN, CRUNCH and DRIVE.

I have a beautiful clean sound and a crunch sound that I'm 90% happy with.

My problem is the  DRIVE sound.

I'm chasing that 90's hair band sound, where you know it's a driven tone with plenty of sustain, but smooth without the distortion overruling.

Now I'm pretty close, but I can't get rid of that "boxy" sound, like it's bad EQ, and the distortion is always over apparent.

Does anyone have any suggestions? 

Eg; should I load up a couple of compressors and a Tube Drive in front of a particular amp model? Should I be using most of the drive from the amp model or from the FX? Is there an output setting or something I can do with EQ to get rid of the boxy sound?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

Cheers!