its how you select/highlight before you use effect
it sounds like youre using fade effect (I assume youre using the built in amplitude, envelope?)
it took me a few sessions to get used to applying the envelope. There is a good selection of presets, as you've noticed...like fade in, fadeout, smooth release, etc...
For what its worth, i use thi effect and all others in the edit wavefore window. I dont use them in multitrack. I dont think this affects anything i tell you, but i dont edit in multitrack. Take that at face value.
there are two ways to use this effect, as far as what you SEND the effect. Okay...lets say were dealing with a one minute long wav file. We edit waveform, get to the edit waveform view, and he we are, ready to apply an effect like amplitude/envelope.
if you dont highlight a certain portion of the WAV, for instance the last 5 secs worth, then go to the envelope effect, Cooleedit will apply the envelope you select to the WHOLE WAVE. I think this is what you did. It messed with me my first session...I had selected smooth release, and the song started "Releasing..." like 5 secs into a four minute track! Definitely not what i wanted. Took me some diddling before I figured out the following:
if you want to, for example, smooth release the last tenseconds of the song, highlight the last ten seconds, then select effects/amplitude/envelope, and select smooth release, then click ok. It will apply that volume change only to the last tenseconds of the song. If you dont select a PORTION of the WAV to send the effect, it will "smooth release" the entire wav, which is what i think you described. Just send the effect the part you want to modify only, and i think youll be happier with the results.