I've played a lot of short-scales. It's so hard finding ones that aren't the extremely typical "p pickup and a tone knob and that's it." Since short scales lose some overtones (but gain a wonderful thump) so many brands don't even bother differentiating.
Of the ones I've played, these are your best bets, imo:
- Mustangs with jazz pickups. There's a number of different models of these, and they'll all have the typical PJ setup. They're not for me, but Mustangs are rather nice, and I did have an American Performer Mustang (can find used around $1,000) that was one of the most comfortable basses I've ever touched.
- Stingray Short Scale. The EBMM are obviously very pricey, but the Sterling version uses the same electronics, and there's a selector that has a "single coil" mode that reminds me of a PJ bass. Roll off the tone a bit and you're very much in P-bass territory. Not a huge amount of sounds, but all of them pretty darn good.
