Projects 2006 - C.Y.KONG.com

Overall Comments:

After attending Eason's wedding in March 2006, I've decided to return to Hong Kong for a while. This time helping Eason on his 2006 album. I'm actually one of the Executive Producers on this album, along with Eason himself. Originally I didn't plan to produce most of the tracks, but since Eason also asked Davy and Davy asked me to do things together. In the end I got involved too deep!! Other than tracks 2 and 3, which were brilliantly done by Kubert Leung, u see bits of C.Y. here and there.

Pre-production began in April 2006. We started sorting out demos and songs. Songs were gathered and Eason picked the final 10 by July 2006, well, after watching World Cup : )
Originally this was intended to be a Mandarin album. But due to the Cantonese Hong Kong market, we decided to do a Cantonese and a Mandarin version of each song, resulting 20 songs.
Production was a long process, running from August, September to October. In the end, we ran out of time waiting for mandarin lyrics and also Eason's schedules were changed, and they decided to release the Cantonese side of the album in November, and the Mandarin version in 2007.

I've learnt and changed a lot during the production of this album. Many many things happened, work wise, personal wise and so on. It's an album that I would never forget.

01. 裙下之臣 Don't We All Love Dresses

Original Working Title: Alex San Hop Hop

Music 曲 & Arrangement 編: Alex San | Lyrics 詞: Wyman Wong 黃偉文
Produced by 監製: Davy Chan / C.Y. / Eason

Produced by: Davy Chan / C.Y. / Eason
Production Coordination: Stanley Leung, Kavin Tsang
Programming: Alex San
Additional Programming: Davy Chan & C.Y.
Drums: Davy Chan
Keyboards: Alex San "n" Bjork Chong
Bass : Kelly (Playroom)
Guitar: Haji (Playroom)
Strings: 陳珀 & 廣州交響樂團 arranged & Conducted by Pak Chan 陳珀

Recorded at aroom studio & seewisehk, engineered by Davy Chan & C.Y.
Synths, Bass & Guitars recorded at Playroom (Malaysia), engineered by Alex San
Vocals recorded at Avon Studios, engineered by Anthony & amic
Mixed by Simon ‘nOiz‘ Li

Comments:

Written and Arranged by old colleague Alex San. Alex is now back in Malaysia and when we started this album, I asked him to submit demos. Eason liked the song and picked this and even insisted this being the 1st plug song.

Davy and I got the tracks from Alex and we helped add a few things and Davy did the drums.
Also sent to Guang Zhou in China and Ms Chan Pak 陳珀 did the brilliant string arrangements.

We waited a long time for the lyrics - supposed to be on the radio by Sept 2006, but ended up just finishing this early October. We had to rush out a Radio mix version... which is actually different to the final CD version, cos things were going a bit crazy in October.

Thanks to Simon for doing the final mix.

There are a few jokes about the production of this song... it's all about the delay effect and the word delay.
Simon said "Delay Not Done By Me"
I said "Sorry for the Delay"
Alex said "There's no Delay"

02. 最後的嬉皮士 The Last Hippie

Original Working Title: Orange

Music 曲 & Arrangement 編: Kubert Leung 梁翹柏 | Lyrics 詞: Wyman Wong 黃偉文
Produced by 監製: Kubert Leung 梁翹柏

03. 白玫瑰 White Rose

Original Working Title: Love Song

Music 曲 & Arrangement 編: Kubert Leung 梁翹柏 | Lyrics 詞: Francis Lee 李焯雄
Produced by 監製: Kubert Leung 梁翹柏

Comments:

Basically these 2 songs were done by Kubert. Just brilliant : )

04. 黑擇明 Reaper Will Find You

Original Working Title: Cold Feet

Music 曲 & Arrangement 編: C. Y. Kong | Lyrics: Lin Xi 林夕

Produced by Alvin Leong & C. Y.
Co-produce/Production Coordination: Stanley Leung
Synths, Cubase Programming & PC Manipulation: C.Y. Kong
Drums : Davy Chan
Bass : Sai Wai 細威
Guitar : Ah Yin 亞賢
Chorus : Patrick Lui
Strings: 陳珀 & 廣州交響樂團 arranged & Conducted by Pak Chan 陳珀

Recorded at aroom studio & seewisehk, engineered by Davy, Rob Porter & C.Y.
Vocals recorded at Avon Studios (c), engineered by Anthony Leung
Mixed by Simon ‘nOiz‘ Li

Comments:

This was written a few years ago, probably even before "DPS" (maybe in 2002). In fact... this has something to do with Leslie again. I think it was one of the demos that I didn't finish and didn't submit to Leslie's very last album. After Leslie's gone, I think I eventually finished the track.
Sometimes life is s strange - in the end this song turns out to become a song talking about not to commit suicide...

Alvin picked this song when doing U87, was intended as a track on U87, but in the end the quota was full and we saved this until now.

The song always had the beeping tone from day1. Eason used to laughed and say it sounded like those hospital machines beeping.
Originally, no all the instrument played the intro arpeggio line, but when we were dubbing guitars with Ah Yin, we asked him to play alongside the synth line and it created that mysterious effect. Then afterwards when Sai Wai played bass, he also did unison to the line at the outro. The line is not easy to play and they all wanted the challenge! What's more, was, when the string session (Ms Chan Pak 陳珀 did for us) came back, she got the strings playing unison to the line as well. It kinda makes it really grand but yet has that 'nerve' feeling!

We waited a long time for the lyrics, and the night after an incident of an attempted suicide of a DJ friend, Lin Xi finally delivered the lyrics. They were very powerful.

This was the last song recorded before the deadline - got lyrics 1:30AM in the morning and Alvin and Eason got the vocals done by 6AM before we need to rush a mix for the Mobile download.

05. 富士山下 Sorrow is Meaningless

Original Working Title: Alvin's Selection

Music 曲: Christopher Chak | Lyrics: Lin Xi 林夕 | Arrangement 編: C. Y. Kong + Pak Chan 陳珀

Produced by Alvin Leong
Co-produce/Production Coordination: Stanley Leung
Synths, Cubase Programming & PC Manipulation: C.Y. Kong
Drums : Davy Chan
Bass : Sai Wai 細威
Guitar : Joey Tang
Percussion: Davy Chan & Kevin (Hardpack)
Chorus : Patrick Lui
Strings: 陳珀 & 廣州交響樂團 arranged & Conducted by Pak Chan 陳珀

Recorded at aroom studio & seewisehk, engineered by Davy, Rob Porter & C.Y.
Vocals recorded at Avon Studios (c), engineered by Anthony Leung
Mixed by Frankie Hung at Avon Studios

Comments:

Alvin selected this song and Eason, Duncan & I all picked this song in the 1st meeting listening to the demo. We all felt that since this was supposed to be a mandarin album and this song should be suitable for the mandarin market.

There were a few jokes about this song - cos Alvin (for reasons) did not reveal who composed the song until very very late. So we always joked about maybe Alvin wrote it and so on. Hence the working title was 'Alvin's Selection'!!

Pak Chan 陳珀 did a rough orchestral arrangement and sent me the Midi file, I added the synth rhythms, try help create that atmosphere, but yet trying to avoid the arrangement becoming to typical or too old fashioned. Then we laid down the drums, bass and guitars with Davy, Sai Wai, and Joey Tang. And finally the strings were recorded in Guang Zhou. It's actually more like a combination of effort in the arrangement - in fact originally, we wanted to put all our names in the arrangement credits (as a joke)!

Some people said or laughed at the song being very old fashioned. To us, I think it works, and most importantly, it's a song with vision/picture - you can imagine the scenes with the music, and very winter too :)

06. 不如不見 Better Not to Meet

Original Working Title: LTNC (Long Time No See)

Music 曲: Salsa Chen 陳小霞 | Lyrics: Lin Xi 林夕 |
Arrangement 編: Anthony Sun 孫偉明 / C.Y. / Pak Chan 陳珀

Produced by Davy Chan / C.Y. / Eason
Production Coordination: Stanley Leung
Piano: Anthony Sun 孫偉明
Programming & Keyboards: C.Y.
Percussion: Davy Chan & Kevin (Hardpack)
Strings arranged by C.Y. & Pak Chan 陳珀
Strings: 陳珀 & 廣州交響樂團 arranged & Conducted by Pak Chan 陳珀

Recorded at aroom studio & seewisehk, engineered by Davy Chan & C.Y.
Vocals & Piano recorded at Avon Studios, engineered by Anthony Leung
Mixed by Simon ‘nOiz‘ Li

Comments:

The mandarin version of this song was the 1st song recorded. Salsa Chen was passing by Hong Kong and actually went into studio to help take Eason's vocals. However we weren't satisfied - cos the song requires a lot more emotions and feelings that, at the time Eason did not deliver enough.

I always felt that this song sounds very 'Leslie" style - and when we did the Cantonese version, I asked Eason to try once to imitate Leslie! We all actually liked this version best, cos somehow when he imitated 'Goh Goh', he even brought along some feelings that Leslie used to deliver.
However, of course we could not use this version as the final, cos then people will say he tried to copy or imitate Leslie.

Eason kept re-singing this and eventually got a little upset with me, cos I still said the emotions' not good enough. But after many sessions, in the end he delivered a take that I think is very touching - and this is the one that got on the CD.

The song is not difficult to sing, especially for Eason. But because it requires a lot of feelings, moods, emotions, it makes it very difficult. And we think at the end Eason did a very god job.

07. 心深傷透 Deeply Hurt

Original Working Title: Way I Do 4 U

Music 曲: Davy Chan | Lyrics 詞: Hardpack+Davy+C.Y.+Eason | Arrangement 編: Hardpack

Produced by Davy Chan / C.Y. / Eason
Production Coordination: Stanley Leung
All Instruments: Hardpack
Backing Vocals: Hardpack

Recorded at aroom studio, engineered by Davy Chan & Rob Porter & C.Y.
Mixed by Simon ‘nOiz‘ Li

Comments:

Eason asked Davy to submit some demos, and this was one particular song that got stuck in our head. In fact, originally, this song was in boy band R'n'B style. Something that Davy originally intended for the group ALIVE.

Davy were helping his mates, Hardpack - a pop/punk/rock indie band to record some songs and Eason suggested that we asked Hardpack to arrange this song and make it into Pop/Punk fast tempo song.

We also wanted them to write the lyrics, to talk about more street/society/love in a different way. The night we recorded the song, we had a draft of the lyrics which was 75% done. Davy & I helped wrote some more lines and combined the lyrics together.

OK, it's me who write the line 拜金世界, 實在變態 (heheeh) and also responsible for the line 無得目訓 'TIL I DIE - the 'Til I Die' bit is a joke we always say because of an old Tai Chi / Joey Tang song... : )

We wanted the intro to be a slow ballad type, so listener dun know what they'd be expecting.
So we needed different lyrics, very romantic or sad or love song style - at the intro.
Eason came in, and pretended to be very love song lover boy heartbroken, and sang out the words "你與我這晚分手...沒有你令我心深傷透~" - so it's Eason who wrote the words to the intro!

We had so much fun making this track. Everyone was happy that night. It reminds us - music should also be enjoyable and fun in the making - which, in Hong Kong, usually lacks.

08. 解藥 Anti-dose

Original Working Title: Wherever U R

Music 曲: Eason Chan 陳奕迅 | Lyrics 詞: Wyman Wong 黃偉文 | Arrangement 編: Davy Chan

Produced by Davy Chan / C.Y. / Eason
Production Coordination: Stanley Leung
Programming, Keyboards & Drums: Davy Chan
Additional Keyboards: Anthony Sun 孫偉明
Additional Keyboards & Strings Programming: C.Y.
Bass: Pal 哥
Guitars: Joey Tang
Backing Vocals: Eason

Recorded at aroom studio, engineered by Davy Chan & Rob Porter & C.Y.
Vocals recorded at Avon Studios, engineered by Anthony Leung
Additional vocals recorded at aroom studio, engineered by Davy Chan
Mixed by Simon ‘nOiz‘ Li

Comments:

This was actually a song Eason wrote for Jo Koo 谷祖琳 a few years ago, which never got released. I wanted Eason to have more of his compositions - at least one or more, on each of his albums, and he said maybe he should get this song back and release his own version on this album.

Problem is, only he himself knew how the song goes, and in order for us to arrange the song, he had to lay down a demo. So in August, we got him into aroom, and he laid down a rough demo track for us to work on.

Davy arranged the song, Pal 哥 played bass - he brought in his Boss Synth Bass pedal and did some really interesting filtered bass on the track. Anthony helped played the piano part - we didn't want the classic piano sound and in the end used a combination of electric grand piano sounds, mixture of CP-70 and Elec Piano. Davy played some guide synth strings and I helped put that into full, and also added in the glockenspiel sounds. Joey came in and did the guitars, recorded thru a TG Channel we just got.

In the middle part, we wanted some percussion. Davy did the raintree, and I went to the drum kit and started tapping on the floor tom. We amplified the sound and it sounds like hand-drums/udu type of percussion. Davy got the idea and then played the 'figured-drums' on the floor tom.

It's weird again - we had a lot of fun making this track - everyone is trying to input something to help make things better and/or different. Experiment, play, enjoy, listen, devote....

09. 天公地道 Fair Play

Original Working Title: Oi Nui 愛女

Music 曲: Peco Chui 徐偉賢 | Lyrics 詞: 黃仲凱 | Arrangement 編: Davy Chan & C. Y.

Recorded at aroom studio, engineered by Davy Chan & Rob Porter & C.Y.
Vocals recorded at Avon Studios, engineered by Anthony Leung
Mixed by Simon ‘nOiz‘ Li

Comments:

This was one of the 1st demos that Eason chose. Peco write this song, titled 愛女 (lovely daughter) which he passed to Eason around 2004, kind of written for his baby daughter. Eason kept it until now. However, he didn't want the song to talk about love or his daughter.

Eason did a demo at aroom, that has a different feel to Peco's original, which was a piano type song.
Davy & I started the arrangement - we kind of wanted this to be acoustic-ish rock ballad type sounds, a little bit like what Eason did back in Capital Artist, but slightly more mature.

Again, Pal 哥 played amazing bass, Anthony played some synth strings, Joey played the guitars, I helped with the string quartet type programming.

After Eason did the vocals, I wanted this song to have some harmony. In fact I generated fake ones (like vocoder effects) from his voice and did some very weird harmonies. Then Eason came into the studio and sung every single harmony track.

10. 粵語殘片 Cantonese Old Movie

Original Working Title: Sunrise

Music 曲: C. Y. Kong / Eason Chan 陳奕迅 | Lyrics 詞: Adrian Chow 周博賢 |
Arrangement 編: C. Y. Kong

Produced by Davy Chan / C.Y. / Eason
Production Coordination: Stanley Leung
Programming, Keyboards: C. Y.
Drums: Davy Chan
Piano: Anthony Sun 孫偉明
Bass: Pal 哥
Guitars: Joey Tang
Backing Vocals: Patrick Lui

Recorded at aroom studio, engineered by Davy Chan & Rob Porter & C.Y.
Vocals & Piano recorded at Avon Studios, engineered by Anthony Leung
Chorus recorded at aroom studio, engineered by Davy Chan
Mixed by Simon ‘nOiz‘ Li

Comments:

Wrote half of this song around April/May 2006. Working title was Sunrise because it was always Sunrise either when I got home, or when I finished one part of programming. Took some of Eason's rough melodies that he composed and added it to the bridge to complete the song.

Originally this wasn't supposed to be on this album. I wanted Eason to compose another song, in fact, to finish a "supposed to be" karaoke song that he wrote one verse back in 2004. He had some rough piano backing chords in his Garage Band but in the end he forgot his original melody and couldn't finish the track on time. Then he decided that we should do this song.

In a way, to me, this song is quite melodic. It's a bit like running scale progressions. Somehow it has a kind of college boy / school boy feel to it, or like some first love kind of moods.

We decided to ask if Adrian Chow (Kay Tse's producer) would like to write lyrics, and he emailed me this story he pictured - which he has magically turned into lyrics, exactly like the story.
It's great cos the way it talks about an old fist love story, memories, and emotions really fit the song and if it gets to you, it gets you : )

There was one bit that Eason tried with a broken voice type singing, and it seemed some people dun like it and said he sang badly there. Eason & I both dun think it was a problem - he was trying to experiment and put in some performance that is widely used in the western world. I guess maybe it's not easy for people to accept...?

The song ends with Pal 哥's bass going down (actually detuning his bass guitar) and Joey Tang's guitar going up. It's like a hydrogen balloon of memories flying up to the sky - the ending the song and the whole album. Somehow, it helps when putting the album on REPEAT...!

02. 她成功了他沒有

Original Demo/Working Title: January

Music 曲: Jean Chien 錢文璟 | Lyrics 詞: Lin Xi 林夕 | Arrangement: C. Y. Kong

Produced by Justin Lo 側田
Synths & Programming: C.Y. Kong
Strings Arranged & Conducted by: Ted Lo

Comments:

Jean's song. Did this arrangement in late Dec2005 / early Jan 2006. The melody just go round and round and round - hence the use of music box type arpeggios.
After I arranged the song, passed to Justin, Ted arranged quartet and they decided to make it breathless. Great effort in lyrics by Lin Xi too.

03. 毅行

Original Demo/Working Title: Namida

Music 曲 & Arrangement 編: C. Y. Kong | Lyrics 詞: Lin Xi 林夕

Produced by C. Y. Kong & Thousand
Vocals Produced by Jason Choi
Synths & Programming: C.Y. Kong
Drums: Davy Chan
Bass: Pal 哥
Guitar : Ah Yin 亞賢
Mixed by Simon ‘nOiz‘ Li

Comments:

This was written around February 2006. Miriam always wanted to try songs with a stronger backing. Production didn't start until like September/October 2006. Jason (and Ah Yu) recorded the vocals in October 2006.
Decided to put distortion on the vocals, cos she has never really had this effect use as majority on her voice.

09. 我只能跳舞

Original Demo/Working Title: Valentine

Music 曲 & Arrangement 編: C. Y. Kong | Lyrics 詞: Lin Xi 林夕

Produced by C. Y. Kong
Synths & Programming: C.Y. Kong
Strings Arranged & Conducted by: Ted Lo
Mixed by Simon ‘nOiz‘ Li

Comments:

This was written on Valentine's Day 2006.
Miriam really likes Katie Melua, and I always thought she can try do some easy listening songs with a touch of jazz standard feel. So I wrote and did this for her.

Recorded this in April/May 2006 - it's been 4 years since I produced vocals (the last session was also Miriam, way back in 2002). I wanted her to show as much sweetness and softness as possible, and in fact, I wanted the old Capital Artist Miriam voice. So what we captured were purely Miriam's heart and some of her smile.

Note: I chose the word "Anti-dose" instead of "Antidote". I felt Antidote is too general and Anti-"dose" seems more appropriate for the translation/meaning.
Sound Clips (MP3 Excerpts)
Session Demo Excerpt	Excerpt of Finished Mix

2006/03
	Artist: Wilfred Lau 劉浩龍 CD Title: All The Best 新歌+精選 Label: Go East, Universal Music, Hong Kong
	Track: 01. 恢復自由 (Original Working Title: ''Pretty Awesome'')

2006/11
	Artist: Eason Chan 陳奕迅 CD Title: What's Going On...? Label: Cinepoly Records / Universal Music, Hong Kong
	Tracks: 01. 裙下之臣 Don't We All Love Dresses 02. 最後的嬉皮士 The Last Hippie 03. 白玫瑰 White Rose 04. 黑擇明 Reaper Will Find You 05. 富士山下 Sorrow is Meaningless 06. 不如不見 Better Not to Meet 07. 心深傷透 Deeply Hurt 08. 解藥 Anti-dose 09. 天公地道 Fair Play 10. 粵語殘片 Cantonese Old Movie

Sound Clips (MP3 Excerpts)
Original Demo Excerpt	Excerpt of Finished Mix

Sound Clips (MP3 Excerpts)
Session Demo	Excerpt of Finished Mix

Sound Clips (MP3 Excerpts)
"Goh Goh" Version	Excerpt of Finished Mix

Sound Clips (MP3 Excerpts)
Vocals Session Mix	Excerpt of Finished Mix

Sound Clips (MP3 Excerpts)
Eason Revised Demo	Excerpt of Finished Mix

2006/12
	Artist: Miriam Yeung 楊千嬅 CD Title: Unlimited Label: Gold label, EMI Records, Hong Kong
	Tracks: 02. 她成功了他沒有 (English Trans: ''She Succeeded He Did Not '') 03. 毅行 (English Trans: ''Trail Walker'') 09. 我只能跳舞 (English Trans: ''I Can Only Dance'')

Sound Clips (MP3 Excerpts)
Demo Arrangement Excerpt	Excerpt of Finished Mix

P r o j e c t s / W o r k s 2 0 0 6 Songs/Arrangements/Remixes/Productions/Projects in 2006

P r o j e c t s / W o r k s 2 0 0 6
Songs/Arrangements/Remixes/Productions/Projects in 2006