Can Axe III do a horn sound?

This 1000x. I've done my time with guitar synths and sounding realistic requires playing what that instrument would play and how they would play it
This is what makes Dweezil's cello and violin sound so good. Most people sound terrible on those presets, but he has carefully mastered the articulations and dynamics that make for a convincing emulation. I learned a lot from sitting at his feet (literally) to dial in sounds while he played.
 
I’d try a fuzz with the bias all the way down, that can give a really reedy sax type sound, just like the BA Zippy fuzz, or the various ___ bone fuzz pedals.
This definitely gets you in the ballpark tonewise. It's not as smooth as @Admin M@'s preset, but it still has a very distinct trumpet sound. I built a clone of Paul Trombetta's Minibone (which is itself a derivative of a DIY take on the old Jordan Bosstone circuit), and every time I switch it on I have to resist the urge to play Louis Armstrong. It definitely does take a different technique, though—I tend to skip the pick and play mostly with my thumb. It's a very fun pedal, though, and one of the few that I have been unable to replicate with my FM9.
 
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After having played with it for a bit, I find that the question is not, "Can the Axe-Fx sound like a Trumpet?" but "Can I play the guitar so it sounds like a Trumpet player."
When synthesizers came out and started imitating the sounds of various instruments, lots of classical musicians were worried they'd be out of jobs. They finally figured out that the synth player had to figure out how to imitate playing the actual instrument and that was a lot harder.

I remember the first time I heard Jan Hammer playing with Jeff Beck and was amazed at how well Hammer could mimic Beck's playing.
 
When synthesizers came out and started imitating the sounds of various instruments, lots of classical musicians were worried they'd be out of jobs.
"Virtuoso castanets by Roy Thomas Baker... and nobody played synthesizer... again."
 
I’m traveling now so I can’t test, but will this work on FM3?

I can’t wait to try that Sax-like suggestion as well!
 
Paul's pedals are awesome.
And beautiful, too. The man's a true artist.
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This is what makes Dweezil's cello and violin sound so good. Most people sound terrible on those presets, but he has carefully mastered the articulations and dynamics that make for a convincing emulation. I learned a lot from sitting at his feet (literally) to dial in sounds while he played.

I have to 100000x agree with this. Having had the same experience of helping Dweezil on his rig, his commitment to making articulations of other instruments translate to guitar is why all of his sounds and presets sound as good as they do.

Watching him play sections of Inca Roads (originally done on a marimba/xylophone (?) ) on guitar was incredibly mind blowing.
 
nice one Matt! i have a kinda soft horn like preset, but it's really just for playing long notes into massive delay and reverb with some harmoniser, a la Nils Petter Molvaer or Jon Hassell. actually performing a melody and achieving some semblance of the different articulations needed is much more difficult!
 
If you read the old (63-part!) Sound on Sound series of articles "Synth Secrets," there is a ton of great info how to use the fundamentals we have in the synth block to approximate certain sounds. It goes to the very basics in terms of what instruments produce certain wave types, why you can't emulate certain sounds without FM synthesis or more complex methods, etc.

And a little off topic as far as horns go, but here's one I was messing with a few years back trying to get the organ sound on the Cure's Lovesong. There are a few other failed synth attempts in here - plucked strings always eluded me somehow.

 
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