The Limited Run Black Edition of Missing Link Audio's Eliminator Overdrive has landed!

The various iterations and ongoing issues with parts sourcing - and indeed high demand, have meant for significant increases in pedal lead-times and it's no longer exceptional to wait a couple of months for your pedal to be shipped - exactly as happened with mine. So I do encourage everyone to have some patience - I'm told that the order cycle for some parts these days can be as much as 18 months now - so manufacturing conditions are very definitely still challenging.

In any case said top pictured pedal has now landed - and it's every bit as good as the demos would lead you to believe. It's of course singularly hewn for one specific purpose and it performs that task supremely well. 

Compared to the similar J Rockett El Hombre the taper of the gain in particular ramps up a lot quicker on the Eliminator - making it more immediate - the Eliminator also seems a little livelier - which is all good in my book!

You need a fair amount of gain for all those great harmonics to fully materialise- which is optimal for me from around noon to 3 o'c on the Gain dial. As with all Missing Link Audio pedals - the Eliminator has fantastic playing dynamics and is really responsive to your touch - with pretty decent guitar volume cleanup too - so you can easily and finely temper your output that way.

My current preferred settings are for Volume and Gain to be @ around 1 o'c, with Tone @ circa 3:30 o'c.

A reader asked me to rate this pedal out of 10 - which is something I never do - it's like rating people out of 10 - where these sorts of things are always much more nuanced and complex than that - if you want numerical scores then read the magazines that do that, I personally find that approach a little artificial and overly simplistic! The Eliminator is for sure a great pedal of its type / genre which gets you into gear incredibly quickly and has all the range you need - being really easy to dial in too.

I probably prefer this a smidge to the J Rockett El Hombre - which generally renders a touch softer - but for sure there will be fans in both camps. The Eliminator is really smartly calibrated with easily accessible wonderful harmonic textures - and particularly within the range I've specified - there's plenty of range on each of those dials - and especially the Volume. Part of me would quite like to see 2-Band EQ here - so I can raise low-end and treble together, but I can understand that would be a surplus requirement for most.

I landed 4 amazingly textured / harmonic overdrive pedals all around the same time - this Eliminator, the BJFE ODS34, Hamstead Subspace Ge, and OKKO Holy Grit. All of which do the fuzzy-drive thing exceptionally well - while all of which are distinct and individual too.

If you're looking to get your 'La Grange' on - then the Eliminator is as good as any - it's not as versatile as some of my other overdrives but for its intended purpose it's quite superb. Just remember that you might have to wait a while to get your hands on yours. They're of course available for order right now from the Missing Link Audio Webstore - which indeed notes lead times of around 4-6 weeks - while it can be as much as 2 months as in my case. There's huge demand for this pedal at the moment - so do please be patient - and if you have any issues beyond inevitable delays - drop me a line and I will reach out to my people to get things resolved!

It looks like August is going to be something of a Billy Gibbons month proper as I'm currently testing a killer Expandora type due for release by the end of this month - and I hope to get my hands on a Way Huge Red Llama MKIII any time now too - which has still to land in the UK - a month after release in the USA!

Who among you is a Billy Gibbons fan - and what do you use to get your favourite Billy Gibbons tones?