The V3 is decent for low end, demo/preproduction stuff, but the original is quite bad for any remotely serious work. The one thing that these things have going for them is they make GREAT bass DI boxes, and have pretty ugly/sometimes cool distortion if you overdrive it's inputs. Good for an effect, and for bass recording. For any stuff that you need to sound at all good, I'd recommend the Studio Projects VTB-1, or the FMR RNP(quite good for amateur stuff).