If I’m editing audio, and I have overlapping events on the same track, one of the two overlapping portions will always be in front of the other, so if I want to adjust crossfade on the clip behind, I have to click on it then do Edit > Move to > Front (or hit ‘U’). Why is this necessary? Why doesn’t it simply allow me to adjust crossfade on the clip behind as soon as I select it? Ideally it should have a visible layer that allows me to grab the top corner to crossfade if the clip is selected, regardless of it it’s in ‘Front’ or in ‘Back’. Seems like just one more keypress(‘U’) that I have to do constantly since I do a lot of dynamic, compositional splicing of live jam material. This is something that Sonar got right and I just can’t see a good reason it shouldn’t work the same in Cubase 6.5? (Maybe I’m not considering some good reason to account for it having to be this way?)
Overlapping events will not crossfade anyway, as long as the “crossfade” is done via the event volume handles. They will fade in and out but only on the parts that are not overlapping, since overlapping events will only play the top event.
To Edit croissfades, you need to make a real Crossfade, which can then be edited in the Crossfade editor.
Wow, I just discovered a much bigger issue with the apparent design of the audio event overlap functionality. So, concerning the issue I outlined above, in the Manual it says, “For audio events, this is an extra important feature, be-cause only the visible sections of events will be played back.” What!?!? Why?? Sure, I can crossfade and that will allow both overlapping portions to be heard but (from what I can tell) only if you use the ‘X’ crossfade function. It seems like there is a severe weakness of the crossfade design in Cubase: you can’t do fades of different lengths on the overlapping segments! Well, you can manually adjust the fade lengths on the overlapping segments but it gets defeated by the “only the visible sections of events will be played back” design Please tell me I am missing something here? If not I’m going to have to start looking to offload this $500 piece of software I just bought because this will seriously bust my workflow.
Here, I’ll illustrate what I mean below:
Here I’ve made seperate fade lengths on the overlapping audio event segments. Notice the event segment in ‘Front’ has the gently sloping fade and you can see the last bit of the edited fade on the event segment in ‘Back’ after the ‘Front’ segment ends:
Problem is, when I play it nothing is heard from the segment in ‘Back’ until after the ‘Front’ segment ends. See the problem here?
The way it should work to provide the most flexibility is, first of all, if I overlap two audio events and Auto Crossfades is disabled I should hear the content of both events during the overlapping segment. But is Cubase really designed so that only the one in ‘Front’ can be heard(!) unless I crossfade? And then if I crossfade the two events I’ll hear both segments in crossfade but only if they are kept at same length? I can manually adjust the fades on the end of each segment but then the Front/Back rule takes precedence. If I then use the Crossfade (‘X’) command I will then be able to hear the content of both events in crossfade but I will lose the manual fade curve information on the second event starting at the point where the first event ends and the volume of the second event will be restored to 0.00 following that point. Also, as soon as you use the Crossfade command (‘X’) the fade lengths of the overlapping clips is locked together.
Is it just me or are are there some serious problems here? From what I can tell, the only way to accomplish what I need would be to duplicate the audio track so that I can have fades of different lengths on the overlapping events. 
I think you need to explore the crossfade options a bit more from within the crossfade dialog.
XFades do not have to be symmetrical, also if you have made event volume changes and want to keep them, have you tried making a cross fade across the length of the event volume changes and editing the XFade so that no fade occurs.
ie, make the Xfades full volume from their starts?
A simple way to state the problem then is that the Crossfade editor does not allow different fade lengths on the overlapping segments. Of course if it weren’t for the atrocious design whereby only the top/‘Front’ portion of the event is heard, this wouldn’t be an issue. I’m seriously blown away by how bad this is. I’m hoping somebody can tell me I’m missing something…
What, did Apple recently patent differing fade lengths on overlapping segments in Logic or something? ¡Ay, caramba!
I’m afraid there is nothing but pain to be found there…from page 122:
Length: This specifies the length of the crossfade area. Cubase
tries to center the crossfade, i. e. the length change will
be applied equally to both sides. To be able to resize a
crossfade, it must be possible to resize the corre -
sponding event. For example, if the fade out event al-
ready plays its audio clip to the end, its end point
cannot be moved any further to the right.
No, not symmetrical but it does appear they have to be the same length, otherwise if you try to override the Crossfade function and use the volume handle in the upper corner of the event you won’t hear the clip in ‘Back’ until the one in ‘Front’ ends. This is a huge problem.
I don’t see how this is related to the inability to effectively do fades of different lengths on overlapping audio event segments.
Well, given that you have enough event room, as the Xfade is effectively bypassed the crossfade length becomes irrelevant and would just need to be made long enough to cover both event volume changes.
That would make overdubs impossible, so - no that´s not the way it should be…
Even if you think it should be done different - that way you can do what you want.
Thats the way I do it if needed, don’t find it a problem as mostly Xfades are just for joins in the same track.
See, what I’m trying to accomplish is not so much a crossfade, but independent fades on overlapping material. But unless I use the Crossfade dialog, the audio in the clip in the ‘Back’ is inaudible. So this means I cannot do independent fades of different lengths on overlapping audio events in the same track, because the Crossfade command/dialog is designed to “be applied equally to both sides”, which defeats what I need to be able to do. See the problem here?
Yes I see what you want to do, I do disagree with the method though. Although I do think yo could get XFades to work like that, It’s such a faf that it would be far easier and more conventional to use another track or however many you need.
Ok, so now were getting to the essence of why it’s designed this way. I basically never do overdubs because I’ve always used my DAW to record live improv sessions then mix later or to compose stuff primarily with sequencing and just using ersatz or edited takes for instrumental parts. So if Cubase is so heavily oriented towards doing overdubs that this Front/Back thing doesn’t allow me to work like I have in other Daws then maybe Cubase is not the right DAW for me.
For instance, in Sonar the way I’m wanting to do crossfades works. Is anyone familiar enough with both Cubase 6.5 and Sonar 8.5 to explain how overdubs are done differently between the two to account for the fact that you cannot hear the content of overlapping audio events in the same track when Crossfade is not applied in Cubase while you can in Sonar?
Not all DAWs can be everything for everybody, If it’s such a killer to your work then a DAW that does what you want would seem the logical choice. Maybe pop in a feature request in the hope someone important will notice 
Disagree with the method in what sense?
First of all, if you think I could get XFades to work like that in Cubase 6.5 I’d be grateful if you could explain how.
Second, to me, it’s not a faf. It’s one the ways I compositionally treat my recorded material. I do three or four hour long improv sessions with my friends, record it all, then go through later and stitch together mixes from the raw material. Sometimes I’ll want 10 seconds of a guitar loop to slowly fade in while towards the end of that I’ll want a different guitar part in the same track to start just 2 seconds before the 10 second fade-in of the loop is complete. I can see how doing strange fades like this would be ‘fafish’ to the majority of users who are recording typical band material with written parts that start and end on a beat or bar line but my workflow is more experimental.
Third, there is nothing easy or conventional (at least compared to my experience in Sonar which is largely comparable in application scope and userbase to Cubase) with having to duplicate every track on which I need to do fades of different lengths on overlapping audio. That would be a huge pain in the ass.
I thought I had explained a way of doing that?
I don’t think you did. You agreed that duplicating the track would allow me to do what I need but that is not getting Xfades to work the way I need, that is duplicating the track and completing bypassing the Crossfade dialog. Am I missing something?
I was suggesting to use the crossfade as a means of playing back the two files simultaneously but without any crossfade set.
That is to open the crossfade dialog and set a user crossfade where the volume is set to maximum instantaneously, on the in and drops from full to zero at the out crossfade.
Then to use the part volume event handles to create the fades. The crossfade length can then be set to a region larger than both the fade areas, thus achieving an asymmetrical crossfade.
why not just drag the 2nd clip to a track right below the first and volume fade the two clips? Takes .00002 seconds. You can even inplace bounce.