Maude

Driving in my Car - Madness

Lucky Number (6) - Lene Lovich

There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards - ID&TB

The Only Way Is Up - Otis Clay Hands up who didn't know Yazz's version was a cover?

Tower of Strength - The Mission

I can't work it out, the Standard and the 75M had dot fret markers but also had Yamaha and the three tuning fork logo on the headstock. The body doesn't seem to match any layout I've seen. The neck attachment looks right for a 75M but then the control cavity is wrong, plus the control knobs and jack look wrong to any PJ that I've seen. Could it be possibly be an early prototype? Maybe a homemade one but it looks very good quality, too good for homemade. It like it though.

@The Attic Man I dug out the tort pickguard but unfortunately it doesn't fit the Encore very well at. Wider neck pocket and the curved tail where the knobs sit is totally wrong. It's actually from an SX bass not an Aria, (the Aria was white) but that's the problem with a lot of these budget P basses, the pickguards are different shapes. I put a generic ebay black PG on my Aria and it fits so if I can work out which one came off the Aria I can lay that over the Encore and see if it fits, if it does the you'll be fine ordering an ebay one.

Mine are arriving tomorrow. It looks like me not having the £12 option bizarrely worked in my favour.

Yes, just go up through the grades, although there is probably a very real risk of rubbing through. It all depends on how thick the original clear is and how much you've taken off with 120. Theres no real method of which grades you should use. The more grades you can use, the less work you need to do with each grade. Ideally you want to remove all the scratches made by the previous, coarser grade, so if you jump too far between grades then you'll just have to work harder. Maybe move to 240 now, then 320, 500, 800, 1000. As you get to the higher grades you won't have to rub much at all. You will probably be able to polish it from 1000 but if you have it I'd go to 1500 and 2000 just to make life easier. Maybe when you see the black begin to thin move to the next grade to give yourself a better chance of not breaking through. It looks like it's had a neck pickup at some point in it's life.

Lipstick, Powder & Paint - Shakey A studio we used to use was covered in various rock related graffiti, my favourite piece was a drawing of Shakey with the writing, "Shakin' Stevens is pure denim toughness". 👌

Hofner Ignition - Beatle Bass - SunBurst? Maybe?

Hi @The Blade, welcome to the forum. If you ever feel like moving the Takamine on give me a message. 👍

I think I have a tort pickguard that came off my Aria STB precision (another excellent budget bass) in a drawer somewhere. Let me dig it out and try it on my Encore, if it fits then it's yours. A quick polish, oil the fretboard and a tort PG and your Encore will be a lovely looking bass.

Ohm my, the terrible puns have started.

Shhh, you know the rules. 🙊

Coming up as £22 (4s) £20 (5s) with that link. You bought the last set at £12 and are just taunting us. 😄

I have a similar Encore (same headstock logo so probably same era) and I genuinely consider it one of my best basses. Admittedly I have spent a couple of hours fettling it but it was still very good to begin with. Being new to all this you presumably don't know about setting up a bass to your liking (forgive me if you do) but it can make an OK playing bass into a superb playing bass, and it's not difficult if you're reasonably hands on. If you're able to, or live close to someone that could help, I'd set the Encore up to your liking, put the kind of strings on you like and give it a good clean and polish, then spend the saved money on an Nux Mighty Plug and some headphones for practicing. There's a thread on here about the NUX Mighty Plug, and lots about setting up a bass but ask away here and you'll get plenty of help.

Kodachrome - Paul Simon

Ah, I didn't see the £12.95 part. I paid £16.37 which is still cheap, maybe why mine are coming next week. Just odd that three different sellers have the same random price.

I'll listen to this today. I really like her debut album. It was brought onto my radar by my wife when I met her as she was really into it. It has. IMO, phenomenal production and sounds just fantastic, but I've never listened to any of her other albums so I'll look forward to this one.

I wonder what's going on though as there's a few different sellers all selling at the same discounted price. Which presumably why we've all had different delivery dates. Will any of us see these strings?

Just brought two sets delivery Mon-wed next week. I generally stay away from rounds as most are just too slack feeling for my industrial (hamfisted) playing, but I'll give these a go.

@pete.young @Bassybert @ahpook thanks for all the offers, they really are appreciated, but I've just ordered from ebay. I can get a pack of ten of each (the other two are the same rating 10uF 25v) for little more than a stamp would cost. Thanks for everyone's input and hopefully it'll be back up and running soon.

The forum at it's finest, thank you both.

That's very good of you, thank you. I'll hold off but I might replace more (see above) in which case I'll order some as they're cheap enough including postage from ebay.