Warwick 1986 Nobby Meidel Bass #408 Vintage Natural
Warwick 1986 Nobby Meidel Bass #408 Vintage Natural
Warwick 1986. Nobby Meidel Bass #408 in Oil Finish.
Exotic Woods.
Rosewood Body.
Pau Ferro Neck with Rosewood Fretboard.
EMG Pickups.
920 Nobby Meidel Basses were built between 1982 and 1988.
Nobby Meidel is on the right.
The Nobby Meidel Story
The Nobby Meidel bass was the first bass built by Warwick. Many of the design features common to all current Warwick's were first developed for this bass. In many ways, the Nobby was Warwick's test bed for all the instruments that followed.
Hans Thomann introduced Nobby Meidel, the former bass sales rep from the Thomann Company, to Hans-Peter Wilfer. The first Warwick model was then designed together with the bassist. This bass, which bore the Nobby Meidel name, was based on the newly popular Steinberger bass, which back then was also already imitated by manufacturer Washburn with the Bantam bass. An essential characteristic was the headstock-less neck and the tuning pegs located at the bottom end of the body.
Nobby Meidel was absolutely pragmatic in the design phase of the new bass: he basically sawed off the headstock and lateral designs of the body to unmistakably make clear how he imagined the ideal headless electric bass. The Warwick boss himself created the hardware design and electronics; he even drew the schematics for the prototype. The brass parts were supplied by metal turner Walter Zeitler from Röslau, the rosewood came from a local lumber dealer, the 3-D bridges from Schaller in the town of Feucht, the pickups from Shadow in the town of Erlangen and the instrument’s finish was done at a specialty shop in the town of Eltersdorf. That’s how shortly thereafter a novel instrument, completely built in the Franconia region of Germany, came to market.
A total of around 950 were build between Dec. 1982 and 1992. There were also approximately 30 special Nobby Meidel guitars built exclusively for the US. A special stand was designed to hold the instrument. The only bass on display in Hans Peter's house is a Nobby.