Roger Hedin’s Custom Unicornbass Pure Art S2 Fretless Features 3,000-Year-Old Redwood and No Controls
Bassist Roger Hedin wrote in to share the new “crown jewel” in his bass arsenal: the Unicornbass Pure Art S2. He worked with luthier Christian Olsson to create the fretless wonder.
“My demands were easy, sort of: asymmetrical neck profile, a bit chunkier than average, all passive, 34” scale, and 19 mm spacing. One pickup near the bridge,” Hedin writes.
Olsson used the opportunity to create a new long-scale model, with Hedin’s bass being the first Pure Art S2 prototype. Hedin tells us the bass, which balances perfectly, gives him full reach over the fingerboard.
“The hard rock maple neck is laminated with three stringers of purpleheart for rigidness, topped with a beautiful ebony board,” he writes. “The body is sandwiched in five layers, with the central core in straight-grained mahogany, a layer of nice flamed maple front and back, and then the thing that makes this bass special: a top and back in nearly 3,000-year-old redwood.”
Get a closer look at the bass in this video of
With such incredible top and back woods, Hedin decided to do away with any controls. The hand-wired humbucker is wired in series directly to the output jack to preserve the beauty of the wood. Even the pickup cover is crafted from all the different woods used on the bass.
“The bass is like a purist on steroids, no controls, just focus on your playing and let the pedalboard do the controlling,” Olsson writes on the Unicorn website.
Hear Olsson demonstrate that purity in action:
The Pure Art S2 is available for order with several options, including a fretted fingerboard or different pickup options.
Unicornbass Pure Art S2 Photos:
Unicornbass Pure Art S2 Specs:
| Scale: | 34″ |
| Body: | Old stock of Khaya, book matched centerline quarter sawn |
| Top: | Redwood |
| Neck: | Laminated, Bookmatched 7-piece Quartersawn Maple/Purpleheart |
| Fingerboard: | Ebony |
| Fingerboard Radius: | 16″ |
| Frets: | Fretless (25 Frets Available) |
| Inlays: | Luminlay Side Dot |
| Pickups: | Split Coil Custom Wound Plus a Dual Coil Pickup in Same Casing |
| Electronics: | Balanced Output to Jack Socket |
| Bridge: | ETS with separate string anchors |
| Tuners: | Hipshot Ultralite |
| Finish: | Natural |
| Straplocks: | Dunlop with hidden inserts |
In his time with No Treble, Kevin has met hundreds of amazing bassists and interviewed icons like Jack Casady, Victor Wooten, Les Claypool, Marcus Miller, and more. He's a gigging bassist performing jazz in Northern Virginia and bluegrass with The Plate Scrapers up and down the East Coast. Kevin appreciates all genres of music, from R&B to metal and everything in between. Connect with Kevin on Facebook and check his performance schedule on his website.
