Sound is an element of entertainment and interactive software that is often ignored or overlooked by newcomers to the field. As Microsoft often explains, holograms are made up of light and sound. Now, whether this is an even 50/50 is splitting hairs, but sound is a crucial factor.

If you look at film as a medium, sound is one of the primary qualities that gives one a truly immersive experience. Directors such as David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock, David Fincher, and the Coen brothers have all made films with some of the best sound design ever.

With that in mind, we will not approach recreating Eraserhead in a mixed reality setting, but we do want to think about what we can add to an experience to bring it to life.

In this chapter, we will explore the various ways to produce sound in the HoloLens. We will work with both stereo sound that travels with you and 3D spatialized sound that lives in the space around you. Also, we will layer these types of sounds together to create the illusion of a real environment.