This Logic Pro walkthrough from Mastering.com dives into Ultra Beat's step mode, showing how each step in a pattern can carry its own automation instead of just triggering a hit.
Click a step and drag its pitch up or down to add melodic movement to a hi-hat loop, or draw in a high-pass filter that only engages on certain hits for rhythmic tension and release.
The same approach works on an 808, automating pitch note by note for more complex, expressive bass patterns. Right-click any parameter lane to clear it and start over if the automation gets too tangled.
The core idea: step-level automation turns a static drum pattern into something with built-in variation, without touching a single extra plugin.