For me, and possible for others as well, the problem is a “fear” of the manual, of not understanding it and the overwhelming amount of information that’s in it.
Many times I’ve read the Cubase-manual (and other manuals), but didn’t get any wiser, so I have a “fear” of not understanding it. Creativity lies in making melodies and song-texts, but I’m not that good when it comes to reading manuals. I had this problem in school also, but had no problems learning when doing experiments instead of using textbooks.
In this case I was not even sure where in the manual to look, and wouldn’t have guessed that the solution was in the “dissolve parts” section of the manual, (I didn’t have to read the manual, remembered - after Split’s answer - seeing the “dissolve parts” function many times, but newer knew what it was for until now).
I’ve seen others as well on steinberg.net getting the “read the manual”-answer, and sometimes it’s said in a somewhat “hostile” way with lots of “!!!”. It’s not cool, and it’s really destructive.
I hope someday to be able to answer other Cubase-newbies questions, give back to the community. If I ever get the urge to tell people to read the manual, I’ll take a forum break or something.
Another thing: When people google their Cubase-problems they might stumble upon forum-posts where others had the same problem. It’s not very informative that the solution is in the manual - everyone knows that. If one must answer “read the manual”, then at least say something about where in the manual:-)
Cheers