Michael Fakesch is most well known as one half of Funkstörung. By the time the band split in 2006 they’d had released countless well received albums and singles on labels sch as Compost, Fat Cat, !K7 and their own Musik Aus Strom. They were also asked to remix artists as Björk, Wu Tang Clan and Jean Michelle Jarre. More recently, Fakesch has focussed on solo works and, in particular, has been focusing on sound design for clients like Toyato, Sony, Lexus and Phillps. The Philps advert went on to win the Cannes Golden Lions Grand Prix 2009.

Can you tell a bit about yourself, how and why you got into music, a bit about your history and how you became successful ?

My name is Michael Fakesch, I am co-founder of the electronic duo Funkstörung. I have been in musicbiz since I was 17, starting with organising parties in my hometown Rosenheim (near Munich), doing acidtracks on Bunker Records and then going into more advanced electronics on Compost Records and my own label Musik Aus Strom. Funkstörung’s breakthrough were our remixes for Björk and Wu-Tang Clan which led into even more remixes and a multi-album deal with K7 Records. Since the split of Funkstörung I concentrated on doing loads of solo-stuff (like the album ‘dos’ on K7), remixes for well-known artists (like Herbert, Mr. Oizo, Notwist, Booka Shade, Bomb The Bass, etc) and last but not least sounddesigns for TV commercials like Toyota, Vodafone, Sony, Lexus and of course Philips which earned the Grand Prix of the Cannes Golden Lions 2009.

How did you discover Jazzmutant’s controllers?

I saw them ages ago when they were presented at some trade fair…i guess it was MusikMesse…but unfortunately it was just unaffordable for me at that time. Later on i saw the controller at a few concerts (e.g. Björk, Herbert,…). I got hooked and started saving money. 😉

Why did you choose to use it above other products on the market?

Propably reason No.1 why I chose the Lemur was the fact it looks so absolutely amazing 🙂 and of course I just love the freedom in building my own virtual interfaces.

How has using the controller changed the way you work?

For me the Lemur is the perfect controller for playing live. Before owning it I really had to practise my livesets cause you had to remember which controller does what (I had loads of controllers). With the Lemur you have all your main functions on one bright screen with all buttons and faders named perfectly. It’s just incredibly intuitive, super flexible and – importantly when playing in dirty clubs – it’s rock solid!

What do you find most useful about it in terms of features?

The best feature of the Lemur is -of course- the possibility to build your very own virtual interfaces. You can name everything easily and you have everything on one screen (or on a few pages which is also easy to handle). Probably the most innovative tool on it is the bouncing ball…that’s something you just cannot do with an ordinary hardware controller. The bouncing ball can create living, morphing effects which have really never been heard before…that’s really a lot of fun.

What would you like to see in future revisions of the software?

I think the software is pretty cool as it is, but in my opinion the hardware might be improvable. I am thinking of a touchpanel which reacts to finger pressure (the harder you press your finger on the screen the more effect it has for e.g.).

What are your plans for the near future?

At the moment I am about to get a really amazing shortmovie/commercial for Lexus finished. After that I will invest some more money into my studio to get it dolby 5:1 ready, which means I’m gonna do more sounddesign work on hopefully an even higher level…but of course I also need to release a new album soonish. I’ve been talking about a new album for years, but somehow I never find the time… I have a few songs ready but not enough for a whole album. Next week (early May 2010) Taprikk Sweezee is going to visit me to do some song-sketches…so hopefully this will result into a new album. You know I did about 100 sounddesigns for TV ads in the last years, it’s not that I’m too lazy to do more music, it’s really that i don’t have enough time 😉