As you become familiar with drum sound programming, you may begin thinking in building blocks, realizing that drum sounds usually consist of different components.
After you mentally—or physically—write down your list of components, try to emulate each component that contributes to the sound’s character, making use of the different sound generators available in Ultrabeat. Assigning dedicated amplitude envelopes to the different components allows you to control their temporal behavior individually. For example, you can emulate the body of a drum with Oscillator 1, the sound of the stick hitting the skin (or first transient) with the noise generator, and additional overtones and harmonics can be provided by Oscillator 2 or the ring modulator.
When you begin thinking that drum sounds consist of several building blocks or layers, the design of the Volume controls in the individual sound generators might make more sense to you—this is the place where the blocks are combined, balanced, and controlled.