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With a bold and unconventional vision, Marcelo Baldin defines himself as a “sound aesthete”, a creative who breaks the mold to balance aesthetics, innovation, and meaning. In a world that often celebrates superficiality, his approach invites us to structure ourselves to distinguish what is truly essential from what is mere noise.
In this interview, we explored the mindset of a professional who doesn’t just follow trends but shapes them, leaving a tangible mark in a constantly evolving industry. Enjoy the interview.
Who is Marcelo Baldin? How did you get to where you are today?
I’m a Brazilian/Italian music composer and sound designer, currently based in São Paulo, Brazil. I’ve been working in this field since 2002 under the alias of Combustion. During my first professional years, I worked as a graphic designer at studios and agencies and as a freelance sound designer. Since 2010, I decided to shift all my attention to audio. Combustion has become an audio production studio where we’ve created bespoke music and audio branding projects for several global brands. Most of our clients are overseas, and I’ve been very connected to the creative community, collaborating and speaking at festivals like Digital Design Days, OFFF, and PixelShow.
“Aesthete is sometimes related to a superficial interpretation of a person with an exaggerated appreciation for beauty, which is inaccurate”
You describe yourself as a "sound aesthete". What do you mean?
It's quite complicated to describe oneself when there isn't a proper term to specify what you do. Recently, many creatives have developed different terms to express themselves and distinguish their titles from others since the creative field is becoming a vast combination of skills. I coined this term in 2018 to express my constant pursuit of creating beautiful work, yet I am not only concerned about the sensory aspect of the piece but also focusing on the concept behind it. Aesthete is sometimes related to a superficial interpretation of a person with an exaggerated appreciation for beauty, which is inaccurate since Hegel and Schopenhauer (for example) were aesthetes with a solid background in their approach.
I also added the term "sound" as a play of words since it has a double meaning: "Sound" as a term related to my main field of work, and "sound" as a solid, robust, and sane approach to aesthetics.
With Combustion Studio, you've created many important projects. There's often a tension between working on commercial projects (with many constraints) and the desire to create something meaningful and lasting. How do you balance these two needs?
The paradox is mainly maintained because of financial needs; otherwise, people just do as they please. This complex balance results in another level of complexity when managing a company and its people. There's also the path you choose to get in because they're always feeding back where you focus, meaning, if you decide only to do creative work, you might struggle financially; on the other hand, if you focus on the financial side, your work might lose relevance. In my case, I opted for the first because I can manage to have less work in the studio while being stable on a small team. It was a long-term approach because I chose to build a body of work that could attract the same kind of creative projects. It's challenging at the beginning, but it has better rewards.
"We can be a better curator of what we consume"
The theme of relevance is closely connected to another topic you hold dear: the need to cultivate critical thinking to navigate a world oversaturated with content. Could you elaborate on this topic?
This subject has always been important, not only these days, but if you go back to Seneca, he already had a quote: "It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested." Having this critical thinking established, we can be a better curator of what we consume. I've been blessed because, in my upbringing, this was a constant subject taught by my parents. They weren't severe, but they were always questioning the quality of what we consumed: "Is this the best kind of (insert anything here) you can enjoy?" We have a certain amount of time in life; we might as well enjoy the best of it. Not in the sense of hedonism, but consuming what elevates the soul. I take that seriously, and I instigate that in the people around me.
Video, on social media and online in general, has become one of the main means of communication. With this transition, sound has also taken on an increasingly prominent role: what's your view on this?
Unlike our vision, our audition is always on for a reason, as a radar to avoid threats. Pavlov used that skill to instigate certain behaviors through sound, and advertisers also used that intelligently. Sound triggers a wide range of emotions and reactions and can also be used while people do other things. As UX/UI is shifting considerably, we might have many more auditory interactions in the following years. Audio production is moving from regular music composition to a sensory tool. To be fair, that's what music is, but contemporary production no longer cares about the usual music theory; it's using other components from neuroscience, such as textures, rhythms, and frequencies, to achieve its goals. You can notice it clearly by listening to how film scores have shifted across the years, from classical music melodies to ominous soundscapes. That is also applied to other sonic mediums.
"One has to take risks to overcome mediocrity."
Are there differences in working on sound content for social media versus other channels?
Yes, and the main reason is attention span. We only have 3 seconds on social media to grab people's attention, so we have to use tricks to persuade the crowd. For example, you can notice that 90% of film trailers use impact sounds in the first second of the piece, so it triggers an emotion. That is also applied to ads. You don't need to inject that adrenaline rush immediately on other kinds of medium, as you have more time to build a storyline. Frankly, I am not into this dopamine incentive. I would instead focus on adding something more profound than just a frenzy moment.
Sound is also increasingly present in digital product interfaces - for example, in interaction feedback, especially in recent voice interfaces (from Siri to ChatGPT). What are the characteristics of your work in this context?
Working with interface sounds is quite challenging because the restrictions are enormous, not only with the use of voice (which is changing fast due to AI) but also with the sounds themselves. Each sound must be unique in triggering particular feedback from the user. The more interfaces we have, the more distinct the sound has to be, and we only have a certain amount of space to explore here to avoid being generic with it. This is considered as crucial as a sonic logo, for example.
What are the challenges in creating a sound identity for a brand?
Squeezing a brand's whole meaning in a 4-second sound is incredibly tricky. It's not just about making a catchy sound or melody because that part is not difficult; adding value to that sound is something else. Conveying the most important features of a brand into sound requires a lot of research and development. Usually, a project like this takes months.
We've recently created the sound branding for Atlético de Madrid. Our first delivery was very appreciated; the creatives loved it! But, in the end, it was missing the connection with the brand's heritage. So, we had to redo it from scratch to deliver everything the brand requested. The final product might sound less appealing than our first draft, but it surely fits the purpose better now. Taking a look back at the process, I can see that we mostly aimed for the pleasurable side of the mnemonic; as Sertillanges mentioned in his book "L'Art et la morale", art for art's sake can lead to hedonism (as the main focus is a pleasure).
The feedback felt like a cold shower, but in the end, it made us rethink how to approach the mnemonic in a way that could translate better the essence of the club. They're about tradition, and we missed that, so we went back to the piano and rewrote it in a traditional sense, adding contemporary elements and textures.
"It's not just about making a catchy sound or melody because that part is not difficult; adding value to that sound is something else."
Is Artificial intelligence changing the way sound content is created? And do you think AI will enrich the creative process?
Well, to be honest about it, AI generates generic content, so it fits those projects that don't need much attention to the final product. The music generated from platforms like Suno or Udio can be considered junk food. Their goal isn't to be well-crafted but to fill a blank space in disposable content. It's ranking below library music. However, I've seen some well-known producers use AI-generated music to create samples or to get unstuck from creative block. That can work, but as I also used AI to help creatives with concepts, working with AI sometimes can be counter-productive. It's a matter of knowing the boundaries of the tools. I prefer AI tools that help create music. Those are time-saving tools for people who work with tight deadlines or like to experiment fast.
Creativity often requires the courage to break boundaries. Was there a moment when you had to make a "courageous" choice for one of your projects?
Many times. The fact is that audio is super subjective in its interpretation, so most of the time, our inputs are very important to the final result since we are the hired experts to find a solution to that piece. One has to take risks to overcome mediocrity.
As a creative person working in a "creative boutique," the client expects the unexpected (a paradox), as they rely on you to surprise them. It's a courageous profession by itself, not in a physical way, but in an intellectual challenge. Here, we are dealing with ideas and materializing concepts, and the clients also expect you to bring some extra flavor that they aren't aware of its existence. I can say that most of our work provides bold sonic interpretations beyond what is presented to us as references prior to the execution of the job. Sometimes, we extrapolate it and need to dim it down a bit. One example could be the Nescafé projects we did some years ago, where the client expected us to deliver regular sound design with foley to the pieces. Still, we provided a different sensory interpretation of the films. It blew their minds, and as a result, the projects became a standard reference in our work for the following projects, at the point I went into a meeting with Wieden+Kennedy Brazil where they were using our work as a reference for what they were briefing us, but without knowing we did that job (because they didn't expect a studio in Brazil would be doing that kind of bold work for abroad at that time).
"Knowing that technology will do our tasks, we must focus on thinking. And having critical thinking is an act of courage."
What fundamental lessons have you learned in your experience that you consider essential for anyone working today in sound design and creative work?
Even though you are hired because of your skills and taste, that doesn't mean you own the project. The project is a product of many minds trying to solve a problem. That means you have to aim for a solution to the task in front of you, so it's not a place you choose to do whatever is in your mind. It seems obvious, but it takes time for a professional to understand their role in the process. Music is a way for people to express their emotions, but they can save that for their personal work. Commercial work is another field. That's why sometimes great musicians can't correctly create music for pictures (or any other medium).
What courageous improvements do you hope to see in your field?
We are on the verge of great changes in music production because of AI. Some are against it with all their strength, and others embrace it blindly. Frankly, the most courageous act a person can do now is to be authentic amid such a maelstrom, which means being cautious yet innovative. Knowing that technology will do our tasks, we must focus on thinking. And having critical thinking is an act of courage. Courage to know the whole music industry is chaos, yet having a sound mind can overcome adversity.
Can you name two people you consider "heroes" in your field or in your work in general?
Maybe the first name I can consider is Trent Reznor, because his innovative way of music production and forward-thinking also allowed him to be successful in the music business, film scoring, games, and many other areas. Another person could be Michaël Boumendil from Sixieme Son. He's a pioneer in sound branding and a leading reference in the field. The SNCF sonic logo was tattooed in my mind when I lived in Paris. The sound was beautiful, and even though it played all the time, it wasn't disturbing; it was pleasant (such as Pink Floyd's David Gilmour used it in a song). He managed perfectly to convey what a sonic logo is all about. That was my first great reference on sound branding.
Can you tell us something about your future projects?
I have a terrible track record of trying to predict my next plans because most are thwarted along the way, but other incredible things happen instead. I am working on some very nice projects, including an exciting music score for a very well-produced documentary (which feels like a dramatic feature film). Those can open exciting doors very shortly. Also, there's one thing I've been thinking about recently, primarily because of my participation at DDD, and it's to write a book about the subject of my talk. That could be interesting since there aren't many books that blend all these subjects.
With his approach full of insights and reflections, Marcelo inspires us to look (and listen) beyond the surface. As he himself said: "I hope my answers were inspiring enough to spark new thoughts in those who read them."
Find out more:
Combustion Studio ↗︎
