Well, technically I am not a newbie, as I'm using REAPER for two years now, and I am finishing my second album. Still, this little (newbie?) crossfade thing is bothering me all the time, and I want to solve it. I am searching the forums for this issue, but either I'm not using the right words or there is really nothing about it. When I am punch-in recording, I get the wrong cross fades: the previous item is faded out, and the next one is faded in, but they're not cross-faded. When glueing, the volume drop can be heard. I don't find proper options in preferences. So now, when finished, I select all the tracks/takes and manually move the right edge of one item, so all of the selected items cross-fade correctly. But I don't want always to do this, so is there an option to automatically cross-fade punched-in items? When splitting, auto cross-fade works ok. The "bad" attached image is what I get and I don't want. The "good" attached image is what I want.

Strange. It seams that I'm the only one using punch-in time selection recording ...

I don't think there's a way to make it overlap automatically. I usually just keep the fade-in/fade-out time very short (just long enough to get a good zero crossing) and it's not toticable. If it's still bad I'll add a manual crossfade.

If you're getting pops at the transitions, then you probably have it set too short. But I still try to avaoid punching in at a busy point in the song for that same reason. I'm not saying it CAN'T be done. I just don't know how to do it. I'm sure you're not the first person bothered by this, so I would try searching the bugs forum before posting there.