P-Bass, Jazz Bass, Mustang, which one?

What genre?

For more rock oriented stuff, I prefer a J, blues/country/rounder sounds I like the P.

thanks for the tips. is there any down side of having a 5 string?

Not really, I find them easier to shred because of the closer string placement & a little more versatile for fingerpicking or pick playing styles.

Plus sometimes you just gotta hit that low B

I play and have played a 90s era mij pbass for the last 20years.
Last night i played a 74 pbass.
Totally different animal in so many ways.

I also own a mia jbass with antiquity2s.

I, by far, prefer a pbass for just about everything.
It can growl, it can be soft and round, it has the deepness. Compared to the few jass basses i've owned/played, the pbass always does it for me.

Clearly.

I've had nothing but trouble with recording and mixing MusicMan basses.  Every one of them that come into the studio, I steer them to the P/J and the bassists end up offering me money or trade for it..

Depends on what you're doing but I think the Jazz is probably the most versatile. P offers a lot of in-the-pocket warmth and groove. I tend to lean toward Jazz-style basses for the "growl" and definition in the lows, which is helped out by the fact that they usually have some decent midrange content. Stingray does a similar thing but with more balls, IMO. Warwicks are an extreme form of that piano-like tight, clear bass guitar tone. My Warwick Thumb can sound obnoxiously aggressive when solo'd but in the context of a mix it's easy to work with and fairly bloat-free, even when turned up.

Being someone who uses a lot of DI'd bass, a big thing for me is upgrading the pickups. Even a lot of the expensive basses out there use mid-quality pickups (not all, but many). Better pups can give better focus and make recording much easier. Figuring out the right ones for the bass and the application can be tricky but worth the effort to nail the bass tone you're after.

P-bass with a jazz pickup. That's what I've used since 1979. It does everything well. Skip Mustang basses, 30" scale and thin bodies. Pick the bass that sounds more solid unplugged. The wiring can be fixed later.

I thought Tina Weymouth (Talking Heads) used a Fender Music Master or Fender Bronco short scale bass?

I picked up one of the new fender Elite P basses last year so I could record some of my own bass parts and I am very happy with it. It has P Bass pickups in the neck and a J Bass pickup in the bridge. You can change the pickups from passive to active with just the flip of a switch. It had just been taken out of the box when I got it with a 15% off coupon at the local guitar center. I am always meticulous in setting up my guitars and was pleasantly surprised that this one was perfect right out of the box. For the money it is really hard to beat and very flexible.

If you are capable with wiring and fretwork, I would pick up a couple cheap P and J bass, maybe from SX or some other option, and spruce them up a bit, for a low cost. It's a good DIY option, anyway. I have 3 basses here and none of them is my favorite, I pick them all up at different times, and appreciate each on its own merits.

I've always felt the Jazz Bass neck is to narrow an the nut.
In the early 70's I ordered a new, Natural, blond neck P-bass. The natural was an ash body weighing 14 pounds.
Playing 6 night a week I had a custom, wide padded shoulder strap made. Don't help the sore shoulder. Sold the bass.
I walked into a music store and the salesman was playing a Bass he had taken in on trade. It was a lot lighter in weight.
He sold it to me for a $100.00. It was a 1968 P-Bass that I still play today. I play a Squire J-Bass while I watch T.V.

Quote from above; "Talk about a long scale bass!"
My Alembic is just over 2 - 1/2 octaves.