Help With Tone

I have an Ibanez 350m with INF pickups, medium low action (A little rattle/buzzing in some frets). It has an Edge3 Tremolo (cheap Floyd Rose) and has a basswood body - http://www.ibanez.co.jp/world/country/frame_uk.html

It sounds amazing with no distortion (or little), but if i put medium to high distortion (I play heavy metal/metal) it sounds nice and crunchy near the lower frets, but any higher than the 12th frets, it sounds all muddy and tinny (especially with the top strings).

I am looking for a lovely sweet tone in the high frets and everything sounds worse if i don't play with the bridge pickup.
What shall I do?
P.S - Still just have a unbranded starter amp

I would say its your amp. I would recommend trying a Vox Valvetronix vt15. its cheap for an amp (about $170 i think) and you can get some pretty good tones out of it from what Ive heard. but of course if you have a bigger budget than that theres other things you can look at

Thanks, but I have a small Budget. I might get a small Line 6

I bought a Line 6 Spider III 15 for my daughter but I use it more than she does. Good practice amp for under $100. I hope you find something.

Should I get a new amp (probably line 6), new pickups (Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates, Dimebucker and another one (Strat)) or an effects pedal (Digitech RP155). I can only afford one. Thanks for the help so far though =)

Hmmm... For your situation I would say that the best course of action would be to first take your guitar with you and demo some guitar distortion pedals. Just ask if you can try out some of the pedals that they have and they will be glad to set you up(unless it's guitar center, then just go play on the wall o' Boss haha). I'm recommending a good distortion pedal because you mentioned that the guitar sounded fine on the clean channel, but it was the distortion channel that you didn't like, which a good distortion pedal would fix.
On the flip side, a good amp would work wonders for you. But it's up to you on how much you would like to spend and how much you really want a new amp.
BUT: DON'T THROW LINE6 OUT OF THE EQUATION! haha
Seriously, they have a bad wrap, but for a beginning guitar amp with loads of capabilities on the amount of sounds you can get, look into a used Spider III. They sound great and have a lot of different tonal capabilities, which is perfect if you don't know what you are looking for in YOUR tone yet.
So my suggestion is demo a few pedals first, and if you aren't completely 100% satisfied with any of the pedals you try out, head over to the amps and demo some of those.
Be wary though, you will probably have to shell out more for a new amp(or used) than you will for a distortion pedal.

dont replace the pickups, you probably dont need to. unless you really know what tone you want and you are ready to throw money away trying to find it, i would just use the stock pickups.

i'd say its between yer amp and the pedal! i'm leaning towards the pedal tho

i vote get a cheap amp off of craigslist. Just make sure it works first

Thanks, but I don't think my local music shop likes me (MusicRoom). They kinda got fed up because I wanted to try an Ibanez Jem (hehe). I'll give it a go and hope it works out fine. Thanks for the help so far =)