Hi everyone, I got the eleven rack a month ago and just started trying to wrap my head around how to craft the presets I want and I discovered that I may not even know what I need to do to make the guitar texture I am seeking. I feel like a food critic (and amateur chef) that goes home and has no idea how to make the best dish they have ever had.

Here is the tone I'm after (it is at 6:02), Adam Jones of Tool live:
http://youtu.be/jmkRHo4Vca4

And again here (at 4:40):
http://youtu.be/eH6mKLqe4Yc

The texture I am seeking is very plasma-like, not exactly liquid, but gloppy i guess. I have tried to re-create it with wah, with delay, with flanger, and reverb (and combinations of these) and I cannot figure out how to get this unstable-intensity quality infused into the guitar sound without making it an echo-ey mess.
I have a good general knowledge of effects and how they are traditionally used but I feel I may not even know what effect this is. Is it effects? Is it power tubes? Is it tube rectifier? I can kinda get close with my B-52 AT100 head set on tube rectifier (into randall 412 celestion g12t's) with my zoom g9.2tt in front. But not quite. And sometimes I think I'm not on the right track.

Sorry for the long post, I am looking for advice and opinions as to how to create this texture, and as I have an eleven rack now, I feel it is time. For those curious, I have been running the 11r into an EV ZLX 12P with Benoni's 'Mesa Dual Rec R1' from his website. I do like the tone, but it is lacking the plasma-like quality. Guitars I use are an Ibanez JS1000 with BKP abraxas pickups, a Schecter Hellraiser FR with BKP Painkillers, and a les paul copy with Gibson Burstbucker pros.

Any help is apreciated!

And I apologize about the external links, I can't figure out how to embed the videos..

try a flanger before the amp model and wah. set the flanger fairly high and crazy as it will only effect the tone of the pickups going into the distortion. try it both before and after the wa, but before the amp for sure.

sounds like a rig that i will be adding to the singtall superpack soon.

Yeah, I actually forgot to mention I have tried the wah in front as well (535q) and haven't gotten there, but I will try your suggestion, thanks!

I am part of your superpack list so let me know if you do add this texture!

will do.

Hi dude.
Just had a listen and my take on it is
Fuzz wah and either a phaser or possibly rotery speaker on a slow setting just loads of fuzz to make the sound oscillate and use a neck pickup :-)

I guess to my ears, especially on the 2nd clip, sounds like some vibrato with the left hand and varying a pre-amp filter as well. It doesn't sound regular to me (periodically repeating). I would assume he is controlling real-time with an expression pedal.

I would try setting up the tubescreamer model in front of the amp, and set a pedal to control the tone knob. Vary from min to max with an expression pedal and I think it has a similar effect.

You could try the Rat model as well to see if it is any closer.

with the way the notes swell in.. I'd investigate the use of an ebow or similar sustain device..

So after trying the flanger and wah combination i am not sure it is approximating the texture. It is a kind of chaotic rise and fall, not rhythmic (as noguud pointed out). Tomorrow I will try to assign an expression pedal to the tone filter or some other preamp or modulation filter to see if that gets closer. Thanks for the suggestions guys!

One other thing, so I am getting from this discussion that everyone is feeling that this texture is produced primarily by some effect-to-preamp interaction and not a characteristic of the tubes in the amp or amp circuit design (or 'scatterwound' pickups, or silverburst metallic guitar finish)? I realize it is probably a combination of many things but I want to reduce it as far as possible. I just want to visualize where this is taking place and it is so hard for me to nail down..