Pedal Line Friday – 2/13 – Julien-Pier Belanger

Today’s Pedal Line Friday submission is from Julien-Pier Belanger. If you have a pedal line (doesn’t have to be in a board) for your rig, please email me a photo, bio, description of pedals and routing to pedalline@nulleffectsbay.com. Every Friday I’ll showcase a pedal line submission. Make sure you include any links to your band or music page.

Hello, my name is Julien-Pier Bélanger. I am the guitarist of We The Island Birds, a Montreal based three pieces band (Guitar, Vocal and Drum).

Here are my pedals :

I ether play a Jazzmaster or a Jaguar, which is then sent straight into the Korg Pitch Black : a simple, yet effective tuner that I bought when I started playing. I know there are fancier tuners out there, but why should I bother?

From the tuner, it goes into my Loop-Master, which is nice since it keeps my signal clean and it is useful to switch between two pedals amid a song without interrupting the signal nor tap dancing; I can press 2 switches at the same time.

There is the MF Drive : the most amazing and versatile Overdrive pedal I heard so far. It can go from a thin overdriven wah-like to a full bodied bone crushing sound.

The Fat Fuzz Factory : I love that fuzz… I love it just too much! It is gnarly, badass; an untamed beast. I use it for a lot of different sounds : from a gated fuzz to an uncontrollably oscillating, venom spitting fuzz when I push my OD in it for a solo.

After, there is the Large Beaver Fuzz from BYOC : It is a simple yet effective fuzz, when I want a tamed beast that’s going to do what I expect it to do.

The EHX Pitch Fork : Since I am the only musician in my band, I love to add a bit of meat around my sound. I use it mostly in its 1 or 2 octave setting. I used to have a POG2, but it was cumbersome and I never used the organ kind of sound.

The Behringer Ultra Vibrato : It does what it is supposed to and is ultra cheap (30$) so if it breaks, I wont be bothered too much. I was afraid its cheap plastic casing would not withstand the abuse my pedal board is going through, but it didn’t cause any problem so far and I’ve had it for 2 years. I would like to acquire the Warped Vinyl, but at 350$ I just can’t afford it.

Here is one of my favorite pedal : the Black Fountain oil delay simulation from Old Blood Noise Endeavor. This thing sings by itself, this is the warmest, richest, creamiest delay I ever used.

The Boss DD3 : Needs no instruction; it is a classic. I’ve had this one for almost 5 years (when I began playing the guitar). This one is not in the Loop-Master for two reasons : there is no slot left AND I like the buffer! It makes my guitar sounds like if I was plugged straight into the amp with a 5 inch cord.

Then the Malekko “Spring” Reverb : Small and indestructible. I needed one since my Traynor YBA 1a  have no reverb.

There you go! If you want to check my band out, here’s a link to our demo https://wetheislandbirds.bandcamp.com/ We are going to record our first real EP this March so keep in touch.