Ibanez VA3 Virtual Amp

I do have the owner's manual, but it was not necessary to figure out, how this pedal works. I had some Zoom pedals before, and logically it's the same when we talk about programming, storing or tuning etc. The manual otherwise very good, explaines all the settings, etc, clear, with some pictures also. I think it's a very easy to use equipment in a rig.

I am not after a sound of those big names, like Vai, or Hendrix etc. But I am pleased if I find the clean sound of a hungarian blues guitarist's (T??trai Tibor) Casio MG510 guitar, wich is a nice, fat, bell-like strat sound - lot better to me than the sound of those very expensive genuin stratocasters. BUT: I still haven't found what I am looking for! (To find that sound, perhaps I must be him - hehe)
I like the effects in this unit. There are some good things here: delay+reverb is a nice thing; all the reverbs are very usefull. I prefer "studio booth" - I thing it's the best for my taste: you don't hear a big room around the tone, just feel, that the sound is coming from somewhere behind the speaker.
Distorsions! I love them! I am not for those very greasy, unbelievable deep metal sounds, like Metallica, or so. I like the guitar shine on the higher frets, and I like the fat bottom on the lower frets, but I like to hear clear what i play. This pedal's distorsions are great for that! And one thing to this: This is an analog virtual amp, that models great famous amps. I don't know how similar the sound is to those modelled amps, but the tone is quite decent! I had a digital pedal that were doing something like this, but the tone was just boxy, and all of the different models were somehow the same - in the basics. But this is not the case here with this Ibanez! I like it! I payed 40 EUR for this used - and I think this was a steal!
I use this pedal now alone running into the effect return jack of a Behringer GM110 (wich is an unbelievable good modelling amp! I say again: unbelievable!!!!! I played once on a 2000 bux' HIWATT full tube amp, but that was not even close to this litle Behringer!!! OK it's my taste, but for me this is what counts!)
Some people say this VA3 is noisey - I do not think so. OK it's analog, so if you use it without the built in noise gate - don't wonder it can be noisey on high gain settings. But that gate works fine!I like it!
I miss the pitch shifter and a wah effect though, that can be driwen by a pedal. These would be nice to have too. But for 40 Euro?! C'mon! I give a 9 for those missing effects.

It was made in the last century, somewhere in the 90's, and is still working fine. Why should be afraid to depend on it?

dunno, but nothing about this pedal on the Ibanez web site! Actually I do not know how many people have even heard about this little pedal ....

I play christian rock and blues, and this pedal suits my style well. I have been playing for over 15 years. I have an old Squier (under reconstruction by me) and that Behringer GM 110 (read the reviews here on HC!!! You will be amaized! Listen to one sometimes, and you will be amaized again!), and I have an Ibanez electroacoustic western guitar, wich I love!
I played several times on a Digitech RP200, and I think those digital tones were almost usefull - except for some nice clean/chorus tones! This oldie is much better, even if this is missing a lot of feature that Digitech had.
I've read about this Ibanez VA3 some 13 years ago - and now I found one on e-bay. I wanted a good dist amp/effect with built in FX - this is very good for the price I payed for! Inspiring while I pay! I am not a worlds greatest guitarist, but I sound good - and it's a good feeling.
I am in the beginnig of being familiar with this unit, but after a few hours I think we'll be good friends!
And this is an Ibanez - my favorite brand. And there's a reason why!

I bought this off Ebay and did not get a manual. But it's easy to figure out. I have several amp simulators, such as Zoom, Alesis, Line 6, and this one is the easiest to set. Editing is easy. I own two other multi effects pedals from this same era/series. I use this mostly for practicing with headphones. All possible sounds are easy to access.

The sounds are EXCELLENT. I don't know what the complaints about the noise level are about as the noise reduction works so well. I'll assume some of the complaints are when using single coil pickup guitars, which are noisy period.

I find the sounds useful and even inspiring. The guitar FEELS good while playing through this thing. Given the age of this pedal, Ibanez did a great job. Some of the editing features are limited, such as the EQ, which isn't real wide ranging but is more or less there for mild tweaking. I really like the sounds in this pedal.

I've had problems with other pedals from this series, but with reasonable care, I don't see that this pedal can't hold up to gigging stresses. Forget about finding a backup. I never even heard of this pedal until I saw it on Ebay.

Ibanez is usually great to deal with. I'm surprised the manual isn't available off their website. I had a problem with another multi-effects pedal from this series and Ibanez e-mailed me the schematic, so I figure they'd do the same for this one.

I play a range of music...hard rock, metal, blues etc. I have too many pedals, amps, guitars and basses to mention, plus I build amps, effects, guitars and basses.

I would look for another one of these if stolen. I'm sure the incredible price I got this for is simply because people didn't know what this pedal was or what it does.

This pedal is a quick way to get excellent guitar tones onto a recording or into a PA quickly. As a practice device it's tones are actually inspiring. I'm so glad I stumbled across this gem.

You get used to it very fast. Works like amp with effects in the loop.
The preselected settings of ibanez are easy to understand. Tooks a little time to understand to change they.
Manual could be a bit more extensiv. VEry short explanations.

Bought it in 1995 and messes around with it some years without satisfaction. Forgot about it then, and reactivated it one year ago, with some better understanding how it works and could sound. Now I can say that the man in the shop who recommended VA3 has been right. I wanted to buy something from Tech 21, but the man convinced me.

At all I think now that (some amp styles) sounds better than Tech 21 Trademark 10 (see there).

Has really good amp simulations. Fender Twin reverb, Marshall Bluesbreaker and Marshall vintage stack. Has really awfull sounds too: Vox AC 30, or some of the modern stacks. The overall sound depend to the "poweramp". There is a great difference between cheap and good hifi-stereo-amps (the recommended poweramp). Do not work very well between guitar and amp.

At higher settings of poweramp its very noisy. Best is moderate level for living-room. I bought it once for this purpose.

Because of the input-clipping it equalizes guitarsounds (Les Paul and telecaster could sound nearly the same).

Has a lot of effects wich I never used.But there are missing some of the effects wich are in the modern amp-simulator, like wah-wah, ore tape-echo. Except of the different reverbs VA3 becomes much more noisy with the effects (flanger or chorus). I turned of the noise-gate because, guitars have no sustain, no attack, and do not deliever low level tones.

IF the rating 10 ist perfect or excellent, I giv a 7, because in absolut terms there are better devices. In relation to the price I paid once its maybe a 8.

It works well, but I am not sure whether this thing works in prfessional situations. Never done it.

Never dealt with IBANEZ. But i am a littel disapointed because Ibanez never constructed a upgrade of this Amp simulator.

If it would be lost, cannot buy the same. No more available. I use a TEch 21 Trademark 10 for the same purpose. Playing at home at low levels, and play with a FEnder Blues Junior. Better sound than VA3 and Trademark 10. particualray for my favorite music-style, blus, blus-rock, vintage-rock.
I dont need the effects, only a amp (siulator) that sounds really good at home. Once it helped me to understand how different amps should sound.

this is a no-brainer to figure out. it helps that you can play through it when editing effects...just strum, adjust things, repeat that a few times, and you've got quite an array of sounds available.

I've got an old Fender M-80 right now (poor beggers definitely aren't choosers) and therefore the hiss is the least of my concerns. For bar gigs its excellent...loud, crunchy, weird, and most of the time the hiss is covered by the din of drunken conversation. The rule still applies, for the real sound, buy the real thing, but as far as copies go, this sounds great and at 1/100 of the price

I haven't played with it very long...but since it still works well, and I bought it used, I'd say its ok.

no idea...the ibanez tube screamer is the only other thing I own from them. decent guitars, but unless you pay top dollar, not good enough

no complaints...the sounds come from you and what you want to hear...this gives you plenty to play with. for recording it does wonderfully, live, pretty good. I think it produces tones comparable to any other effects board I've used (lots) and it didn't cost me 500+ dollars

It's easy to make it sound good, easy to program/edit, and easy to carry around or put on the desk, but I've never seen the manual.

I've used my VA-3 for recording and live playing since 97, and it still works, even though the power supply died. It is noisy through an amp, but can still sound good enough for live gig recording. The effects are nice and smooth, and it cuts through the mix well. I've used it straight into a PA system, into various tube amps, into analog 4 track home demos, and digital 8 and 16 track paid recording sessions. Works well with vintage Fender tube amps, if you don't mind a bit of hissss. It can do the classic rock thing really well, and Van Halen tones, and I haven't had any problems getting heavy sounds out of it. The only drawbacks to the sound quality are :
1. the noisy hissss at medium to high gain settings into a tube amp, (that's probably because it's analog, which is why it sounds so good and warm), and it drops out for a second when you change programs. Other than that, it's a tone monster.

Going on 8 years of steady use, and I only had to resolder the input jack back to the main board once, after I let a dumb kid borrow it. (who's the dummy?) I've gigged in nasty dives and outdoor festivals a few hundred times in that time period without a backup! It's a part of the family. It's almost vintage...maybe the value will escalate!

No dealings with Ibanez since I sold their stuff in the 90's. And they were hell to deal with from a sales standpoint. Hoshino handles Ibanez, Tama, maybe Laney, and some others, but No experience on a consumer level.

I've used it for jazz, blues, rock, new age, grunge, punk, ska, gospel, Americana, you name it, and it's worked every time. I've been playin since I was born (in '68), and used all kinds of stuff from el cheapo Arbors to custom built Kalils, handmade pieces, and it's not in the gear, people. It's in the soul. I actually got rid of this VA-3 for about a week, and I had to go back and get it. Love:It's just so easy to set up and sound good with it, with the exception of the crappy little wall-wart, and the input jack is on the wrong end for most right handed players. It's worked well with all kinds of guitars and amps, in all sorts of musical situations. Got a Digishittech RP-7 (tube),and I shoulda known better...all RP's blow ASS! I didn't even keep it for a month. Pod? Get real. They just came out with one to gig with. J-station? too flimsy. Boss ME stuff? Maybe. But they're 300 bux. This thing just had the right amount of features (most importantly sound), without being too big, although it's a little too lightweight....or is it? I've never put it in a board or case, and it's still goin' strong. If it weren't for the hiss, and the dropout, it might be perfect. Take in mind, it was one of the first of its kind when it came out, and only until very recently did I even consider replacing it. And that's where the Behringer V-AMP 2 comes in...notice they took the same name, VIRTUAL AMP. Now, the VA-3's are ridiculous cheap on peebay, which makes them the next big thing to pick up! They're cheaper than most single unit pedals!

I bought this off ebay for #30 (the previous owner had listed it in the wrong category so no-one else bidded but me...muhahahaha), but this meant that it came with no manual. I had never even seen an effects board or preamp before so understandably I was stuck..but I had the thing working perfectly within the hour so It cant be too hard to use. One problem with the VA3 however is that you can't access the (very handy) tuner though the menus - you hold down the bypass button. Also, you can only bank up and not down, and there are nine banks so this could be a problem if you tread on it by accident. However I cant really complain about anything for the price so rock on..

The amount of sounds you can squeese out of this thing are amazin, especially for saying it was made over a decade ago. There are 12 amp models such as blues amps, driven combo, vintage stack, la stack, grunge and thrash (plus a few more), 8 stereo images...flangers, tremlo (could be better), choruses, thick doubling and twin guitar settings, 13 ambiences such as studio booth, room , hall, garage, spring, plus versatile delays reverbs, and even pan delays that come into their own when you link the VA3 sterio though two amps at opposite ends of the room. Most settings can be tweaked (drive, time, level ect) and it comes complete with a noise gate and equalizer..although this is a bit weak and only ranges -7 to 7.

However, for all of these amazing effects, the thing is just too damn noisy. It sounds a bit better when used for recording which, to be fair, it was designed for, but if you hook this up to an amp (which in equal fairness it does have connection settings for), it sounds terrible with loads of noise, even with the noise gate all the way up and the VA3 set to accoustic mode. Unfortunatly this means I can only give it a 7 for sound quality.

I could gig with this without a backup because it is fairly foolproof. It can only be powered by a DC lead, meaning theres no temptation to put batteries in and hope they last. It is made out of durable plastic that can take plenty of battering and the pedals are ample size, meaning you shouldnt stomp on more than one if you're accurate.

As much as I love ibanez, it does seem that they generally make a great product and then forget about it, as another reviewer has said below elsewhere on this page. They dont supply manuals for old products and the American site seems to have much better guitars on it than the English site for some bizzare reason.

Basically, for the price I paid for this, it is a top piece of gear. It suits me fine for any basic recording I need to do from time to time due to its stereo outputs and headphones. It also has an aux in should you want to jam along to a CD or something. It has an amazing amount of effects and Ibanez have made a very good job on making the presets lifelike..however you can create unique-ish sounds by combining elements and storing them in one of its 27 patches (9 sets of 3).

However this is not made for amps and if you do plug it in and try to use it as a preamp you may be disapointed. It makes soo much noise.

This Vamp is realy very well designed and very easy to operate. Although this virtual amp was already developed some ten years ago,in 1993, it has a lot of high quality features. Minus one point because the tuner cannot be selected by using the footswitches.

The VA3 has 24 presets, some are very very good, some are good, some are bad but you can edit all of them and create your own sound to meet all your ears needs. My fender strat sounds the way I like it. Even when I use my classical guitar with an El Cheapo pickup (about 20 Euro) it produce a decent sound without noise. Thats why I give it a ten!
Also a good friend borrowed it for a short time and was amazed...

As mentioned, the VA3 is very well designed and therefore very reliable.

Never dealt with them.

I play all kind of styles and thats why the VA-3 is the right part of equipment. I grouped all presets in a smart order and archived all settings (because a memory lost can occur) and I got any sound I want. If it were stolen or lost I definitely would buy it again!

I bought it thru an auction, so there was no manual. I was able to get the basics down after screwing around with it 4 an hour or 2.

Great mix of effects -- it's got it all.

Only had it for a week, but it's used and still functioning perfectly, so there's obviously some good reliability

n/a

I don't know how I played without it. For $40, it's given me a huge range of sounds that I can crank out at the touch of a pedal. There may be newer, fancier models around, but if you can get a deal, gofer it!

It took 5 minutes to figure it out. I didnt have a manual,either.

See coments below...

Its tough enough for the simple gigs in suburbia. I wouldnt tour with out a backup,though.

Ibanez makes a good product and then basically forgets about it, from what Ive seen. You get more support from users groups and 3rd parties, sad to say.

Here's the deal. I saw this thing and plugged in. Im a tone fanatic and have owned just about everything...an hour later I had to face the cruel facts. Namely, It sounded great..but it was just to noisy for me to use. UGH!!!!!
The amount of hiss coming out of this unit would be fine for most guys but, c'mon guys its 2001 and recording are very clean these days. I can't get away with a hiss trail at the end of every note.
Its really sad because the tones in this box kill. I have always wanted to have a quick way to get some really usable classic tones..and the VA3 does that..but I cant rack with it because of the hiss. Even with a gate on it, its always a part of the sound.
If Ibanez makes a new one with out the hiss...I'll buy 5! But as it stands I had to let it go.
Besides, it cant do really extreme tones (death metal) anyway.
oh and PS: Its not to good into an amp, as mentioned by others. But if what you're looking to do is quick demos and you dont intend to relaese them, by all means check it out.
I have alot of other gear..and usually use a GX-700 to cover what the VA3 does. Granted I have to spend ALOT of time tweaking..but at least at the end of the day I can use the sound. Feel free to email me about it. Especially you folks at Ibanez..c'mon guys I really want to buy 5 of these once they are perfected!
-GtrGeorge

Ease of use is not bad, once one becomes acquainted with the manual. Editing patches is easy.

I am using this with an EVH Peavey Wolfgang Special, an older Peavey amp, and an Ibanez Thrash Metal Sound Tank pedal. The reason for the pedal is that the VA3's distortion does not have the gain that I need. However once a preset is created with light distortion, noise gate all the way up, and used in conjunction with the Thrash Metal Sound Tank (or maybe another distortion pedal,) it seems to sound better than anything I've used so far.
For sounds not over-the-top with distortion it works great as well. There are Marshall, VOX AC-30, Twin Reverb, JCM900, Laney Metal and other amps packed into this box that allow a wide array of sounds, and especially when used with chorus, flanging, delay, pan and other effects that work great.
This box works best for recording. Some have had bad experiences with running distortion directly into a four track. Not with this. While the settings that I run through the four track are not the same as the settings that I use through the amp, I have managed to get a faultless, completely distorted sound in true stereo that no one would complain about (when used in conjunction with distortion pedal.)
Directly into the amp can sound great as well if one simply takes the time to shape the tone.
Rating is a 6 because not enough gain!

No problems yet. Haven't used it to gig, but would use one without a backup hoping that noone spilled a coke on it.

Not dealt with company. Haven't needed to!

If this were stolen or lost, I would have to buy it again, because nothing in the same price range seems to come close. My favorite feature it it's true stereo. I hate the fact that it's gain doesn't reach the levels I like, it'd be my all-in-one box if it did!

This thing sounds great right out of the box. HOWEVER, a product like this has a very limited appeal. Editing patches is the typical Ibanez multi-stomp routine. It actually uses 3 knobs so it's a little more intuitive than other products that only use buttons. This thing sounds great but only if you're playing through a hi-fi system or recording. If you stick this thing through ANY kind of guitar amp-it will stink. Not that it sounds bad- it just feels wrong.

The Noise reduction is great- it makes the unit quiet. Quiter than ZOOM's ZNR. Ibanez VA-3 doesn't buzz in front of CRTs like alot of other products- important if you use a computer for recording. The AMP SIMULATIONS are pretty darn close-VOX AC-30, Twin Reverb, JCM900, Laney Metal and others. Since I can't afford to buy all the real amps- this is a real maney saver plus it'll fool almost everyone. As a bonus, there are chorus,flange, reverb, effects that all sound great.

This thing shouldn't be used at a gig and piped through a guitar amp. For studio recording, this thing is great. It's plastic so don't beat it to death.

I've tried every single "AMP SIMULATOR" I could possibly get my hands on in the under $500 category and this one beats them all without question. For recording, you can't do any better. Again, this is a very limited scope for this product. Most guitarists already have an amp and would not need this if they like their sound. I've tried teh ZOOM 3030, 1010, 505, Digitech RP-10 RP-5, ART SGE ECC, Morely JD-10, All the cheap Sans Amp products. The IBANEZ wins hands down- no contest. DO NOT BUY THIS UNLESS YOU ARE RECORDING. This unit saves the pain of miking an amp and sounds great ONLY for that putpose and nothing else. If you want a great live unit, this is the wrong place to look.

Very easy to use...didnt have manual but didnt need it. Editing patches is very simple.

Ah...sound quality...well the reviewer before me was very enthusiastic about it, and I too bought it because it was highly recommeded, but I differ in my opinion of it. In my opinion, its great for direct recording if you dig Tube screamer and light overdrive type sounds, but I personally thought it close to useless for getting massive death metal type sounds. I just couldnt seem to get a good massive palm- muted chugging sound out of it. My SansAmp GT-2 to me sounds much warmer sounding, gives better, glassier, blues tones and gives excellent heavy/death metal tones direct to tape. The Ibanez though does have some very nifty features like its digital doubler, chorus, flanger, delay and very nice reverb which all sound very nice. The digital doubler is very handy when you want stereo guitar tracks but don't want to record to different guitar tracks manually (where your riffs have to be played exactly the same each time). It also has very nice noise reduction which cuts noise off very smoothly. But like I said, as guitar tone is highly subjective I highly recommend you listen to this thing before you buy it. I messed with eq and distortion/amp settings for days (and I'm still messing with it) and while I've gotten some nice direct to tape sounds I cant get massive cranial crushing, super rich sucked mid death metal tones that I'm after. One trick hower that you can do is to run your favorite distortion pedal into it and then adjust your cab sim/eq settings until you get a cool direct sound. Oh...also the VA-3 doesnt sound too hot going into an amp unless you really mess around with its eq/cab sim settings along with your amp's eq settings. Also, contrary to what the previous reviewer said, SansAmp does make a programable rackmount version of their amp sim. Anyways...yeah for the price I paid for it used I can't complain too much. Good for getting Tube screamer sounds on tape but thats about it in my opinion. I like the direct clean sounds on my Zoom 3030 and on my Digitech RP-1 much better.

So far no problems. Might want to take a backup as it is cased in plastic.

Havent dealt with them.

I might buy it again just to use it for extra tone variety for direct recording and for its reverbs,delays,doubler,ect... but for getting real heavy hardcore death metal distortion or real warm glassy SRV tones on tape, I would recommend the SansAmp GT-2 as a better option. The Hughes & Kettner Red Box is also an excellent cab sim as well. I often run the GT-2 into the Red Box to warm up the direct sound even further. They work very well together.

First I have to say I am exptremely surprised noone have even heard of this unit in all the musicstores I have visited. I read about it in a review in a music magazine and was so impressed that I ordered one without having heard it with my own ears. This is a very well sounding ampsimulator to an affordable price.
It is built into a compact floorunit with 4 pedals and you also get a few effects all have stereo capabilities. It also has a three band graphic eq, noise suppressor and a tuner which tracks fairly good. The power supply is external. No external loop jacks are included. This is more or less a plug and play unit since there are not many parameters to modify and the included presets covers most of the sounds possible to produce from this unit. I have tried to tweak the parameters to find new even better sounds but Ibanex have done a very good job when they designed the presets.
However if you want to tweak it is very easy. Each effect has 3 parameters and there are 3 knobs to tweak with. Like most other Ibanez units there are no extreme features in this box. Not even the parameters have extreme levels so how much you ever twist the knobs you will never find any really bad sounds.
There is no real compare function instead there a LED blink when you reach the stored value of a parameter you are tweaking. There is also no LCD display, only 2 LED digits which handles all communication with the user. This means you cannot store any patchnames. This and the fact there are only 24 user patches (which are the same as the preset patches) makes it very difficult to remember what sound I am erasing when I want to store a new sound I have created to a patch.
When you are playing the pedals could be used in patch or manual mode. In patch mode you have 1 pedal do BANK UP and 3 pedals to select patch in the bank. You cannot do BANK DOWN. In manual mode you can switch the effect on/off. There is one pedal for each effecttype. The types are AMP, TONE, STEREO IMAGE and AMBIENCE. AMP includes 12 difference amptypes. TONE is the 3 band grafic eq. STEREO IMAGE includes flanger , chorus, tremolo (which actually is a triangularwave chorus) and doubling. AMBIENCE includes reverb and delay. The switch of patches and effects is completely silent.
The manual is very thin since there are very few things you have to set but what I miss is some kind of guidence how to use the parameters to get the best out of the unit. However the only thing I had to use the manual to was to see what was included in the presets and how to switch the noise supressor off.
The reason I give it an 8 and not 10 is the lack of a descent compare function and the trouble knowing where to store new patches.

For this price I think the sound is unbeatable. I havent heard the Sansamp and it might be as good as the VA3 but the Sansamp has on the other hand no effects at all and no programmability.
For me the Amp simulations sounds really great. I am using it with a Fender Strat Lone Star direct into the mixer and compared to the Boss GT-5/GX-700 (including COSM technology) the VA3 gives almost as good sound. Maybe better in some cases. With the Boss I really tried to get this hardrock sound of the 70'ies but I couldn't get it`. In the VA3 it was just there in a preset. For some reason I just couldn't resist strumming the first chords of "Smoke on the water" and believe me or not. It really reminded me of the intro on Deep Purple's "Made in Japan" version of that song. This thing really made me want to play old tunes by Deep Purple, AC/DC, Van Halen or Steve Ray Vaughn Lynard Skynard and Hank Williams. It even made me play some speed metal which never even tried before but the patch was there so I had to try and it sounded great. What I miss is Hank Marvin.
I don't really know if it sounds like the real thing but the review in the musicmagazine said, I quote "This thing doesn't sound like a Vox AC30 or Fender Twin. It IS a Vox AC30 and a Fender Twin ".
Compared to the Boss GT-5/GX-700, the Boss of course gives lots of more effects and much more modification possibilities. If you want a real personal sound the VA3 is not for you.
The Amps thats supposed to be simulated are Fender Twin, Marshall JMP900, different Marshall stacks, Vox AC30, and some other I don't remember. All have a different sound ranging from Blues, country hardrock, grunge to speed and deathmetal. It is though a little bit difficult to get good clean sounds since the eq is a little weak. With only 3 bands and only +-7dB it doesn't change the sound very much.
Another thing I found amazing was that the distorion was very clear even compared to the GT-5. I can do sixstring distorted chords and it doesn't sound bad. It is also very easy to play. Maybe this is b ecause I prefer to play with very little noisesuppression with the VA3. It does produce noise, even with the clean sounds but the noise doesn't increase so much when you increase the gain on the dist as it does on the GT-5. If you don't like noise at all you will find the VA3 noisy but I like the noise from this unit. If you ever have tried a Zoom 9030 the VA3 is rather similar when it comes to noise.
About the effect there isn't much to say. They sound fairly good and do their job. The flanger is a little unclear, the tremolo is actually a chorus with a triangular LFO but sound exciting in small amounts, the chorus is okay, the delay sounds very soft but you can't set the number of repeats, the reverb also lacks the possiblility to tweak the length and character. You can only select one of 6 reverbtypes and the mix with the direct sound. There is no compressor included but the ampsetting includes a certain amount of compression. The noisesupressor can make the VA3 very quiet without making it hard to play but there is a noisetail when you sustain very long tones which doesn't sound very well.
I haven't tried the VA3 through a guitar amp but with a real amp present why would you need an ampsimulator? Even Ibanez states in the manual that to obtain the best sound it should be connected directly into the mixer. However it should be possible to use with a guitar amp since there is a parameter affecting all patches where you can select the output filtering to be matched to line or a combo or a stack.
All the credits for the 10 below is the ampsimulation.

I only use it for homestudio purposes so I can't tell if it will last on a worldtour. The casing is the same as other Ibanez multieffects and I guess the electronics also are similar (if this thing isn't a fake and there really is a microtubeamp inside :-) ) so I suggest you have a look under the other Ibanez products in the effets database. However my experience with other Ibanez equip- ment is that they are very reliable.

Never had any trouble with Ibanez stuff and never been in touch with the company.

I would definitely buy it again. Actually I have bought it twice. I first ordered it from a mailorder company but they had a backorder for it so long that I rushed away and bought a Boss GT-5 instead. After a couple of weeks a came to my senses and changed the $750 GT-5 to a VA3. Not because the GT-5 sounded bad but because the VA3 suitet my purpose better. The price is much lower, the size makes it fit into your gigbag, the weight can't be more than 2 pounds than the GT-5 and the VA3 sounds almost as good and sometimes even better. With the GT-5 I always ended up tweaking parameters forever when what I actually want to do is play and this thing also makes me a feel as a better guitarplayer. For homestudio recording the VA3 is perfect.
Before buying it I tried lots of other units. The Digitech RP-6, Zoom 3030, Boss ME-8 and Korg AX30G is in the same pricerange, are all floorunit but has lots of more effects but the ampsound where not at all as good as in the VA3 with the Korg as a clear second. The Digi- tech Valve State has tons of more effects, is double the price and has real nice dynamics when you're playing but I felt the sound had more life in the VA3. The Boss GX700/GT5 is very similar in the sound which is no wonder since they are supposed to emulate almost the same type of amplifiers. The price is double or triple the price of a VA3 and they are also much larger and heavier but has also a much, much better eq-section. You also get tons of stereoeffects which I prefer to have in a separete unit in the effectloop on the mixer. Other units I would have liked to try is the Sansamp and a Hughes & Kettner unit I forgot the name of including a Red Box. They are supposed to give a real good sound lined and are cheaper and smaller like stompboxes. I have also heard that the manuals for these are really good giving advise for parametersettings. These 2 units are however not programmable and have no effects at all included.
If I shall suggest any improvement on the VA3 I would replace the modulation and ambience effects with a better eq, an analog autowah and an outlet for expressionpedal for volume and wah. A small chorus or phaser before the ampsection wouldn't be bad either but as it is right now, for this price I couldn't find anything better for use at home.