Have an old keyboard, Roland RS-70, all set up and doing fine in Sonar 8, except for my sustain pedal. It plays fine with perfect sustain working while recording, but playback takes out every ounce of sustain and is dry and choppy. Please help me. I'm all set to go but for this little aggravation.

One possibility is sustain overlapping each others, if it's recording over previous tracks.
 
Looking at the piano roll may show this, especially during recording over a track.

Thanks Albert. I'll look at the piano roll, but I think it's some setting I haven't got set right. But thank you much.

Nope. Can't fix it. Any other help out there? Really need it.

Double check that the effect is actually getting to the track?
Could be the output of keyboard is dry and your monitor is not.

Hey tobey, can you explain what you mean by keyboard is dry and monitor not? Sorry for my ignorance. Also, how do I tell the effect is getting to track? All this is new... as you might can tell.

What synth are you driving with the MIDI - soft synth or the RS-70's own sound module? If it's the RS-70 and you haven't turned off Local Control, it might be responding to sustain messages sent locally, but they're not being recorded for playback. If you go to Views Event List, do you see CC64 controller events alternating between 127 (pedal down) and 0 (pedal up)?
 
In any case, you should check the RS-70's manual for how to run off Local Control, and then enable Input Echo on the MIDI track in SONAR to echo MIDI back to the keyboard in real time, so that you're using it like a separate MIDI controller and sound module. Then what you hear while recording is what you'll hear on playback.

I'm sorry to be late replying, had to go to bed. I'm using a Tascam FW 1804 interface driver. And I have been keeping Local Control off. No CC64 events in Events List. I thought it was receiving them, but it's not. I turned on the Input Echo and it didn't work either and showed no controller events as well. I noticed that it not only doesn't record sustain but it chops the data up, especially when I play chords. The RS 70 has a lot of system message options that I've been playing with for days and nothing works. But with Local Control off, it wouldn't help anyway would it? So is it the Tascam maybe?
 
Appreciating the help so much.

A sanity check:
In Edit -> Preferences -> MIDI -> Playback and record --
In the RECORD section there is a list of MIDI event types to record. Is "controller" checked?
In PLAYBACK make sure the "Prepare Using" value is 500 or more.
 
Aside from these settings: there is a midi activity indicator on the task bar. Even without play or record active, it should blink when you press the pedal. That would indicate the keyboard is actually sending pedal and Sonar is detecting it. The settings above control whether Sonar will record it and play it back properly.
 
A very old post about similar problems using old Roland keyboards:
http://forum.cakewalk.com...r-SOLVED-m1633919.aspx
Vaguely suggesting there was a Sonar bug in some old version (8). So at least make sure your Sonar 8 has the latest update.
 

I'm away from my setup and won't be home till tonight late but am anxious to try your instructions and will get back to this forum as soon as I try it all out. I had found the link you posted and tried holding the key down as it said to do, but no go. I'm not sure if my Sonar 8 is updated or not, will find out. I so hope checking the controller as you said will work. This is driving me crazy.
 
After years of use, my brother moved from Sonar 8 to Logic and he's the one that has set up Sonar and everything for me. He's a guitar player and doesn't understand how important sustain is to a keyboard player. He told me to just do what he did on Sonar and go into piano roll and lengthen the notes. The song I'm trying to record is 7 minutes long... can you imagine what it would take to do that in a song filled with elaborate keyboard parts? While he would never consider playing his guitar dry, he doesn't understand the essential need for the nuance of sustain. So, he will be no help on this. I say this so it will explain why I know so little about the set up myself. But for this sustain problem everything is gliding beautifully.
 
I'll be back as soon as I work the adjustments you mentioned to let you know if it worked.
 
Thanks lots... and lots.