Maybe everyone knows this, I didn’t, mainly because I use connected clips, not secondaries, I don’t use audio dissolves much, and if I cut audio in a secondary the stock centered transition works fine most of the time. But, I discovered a little trick to have a nice A/B crossfade and use a transition to create the handles for you, and give you a “thumb” to move the cut point around.

Cut your audio in a secondary and stick a dissolve on the cut. The length doesn’t matter, it will just be a drag handle when you’re done – Then, just expand the audio and adjust/trim the A/B sides and fade handles as you normally would.

It’s really the same as if you just did it without the dissolve, except… you can now select the transition to adjust position of the expanded edit point using the <> + Shift (if needed) keys. Be aware, when it’s expanded, dragging the transition doesn’t move the cut, but when you collapse the audio,  you can click and drag the transition and it moves he A/B handles/fades with it. Useful?

EDIT: The dissolve doesn’t do anything once you adjust the A/B handles, and you can pretty much do the same thing by selecting and dragging the edit point. What it does so is create some handles for you, and let you drag the edit point without changing tools. Saves a couple keystrokes and clicks… 🙂