thanks all so much for the help. I just wasn't sure where to turn gain down so as not to lose quality in the synths. Guitar Rig was the biggest ****. Blastin' me out as soon as I input plugin'. 

I have rarely ever touched the gain control on a track. To me they are last resorts for poorly recorded audio or badly setup soft synths. When using a synth most if not all have a volume control.  Many have a mixer as well. The idea that one would not use these controls seems odd to me. True its hard to cause Sonar to clip but that may not be true of a synth internally. The gain control wont have any effect on what happens to the signal before it reaches it. 
 
In Kontakt for example there are two places to adjust the level for an instrument . One is on the instrument itself at the top to the right and of coarse the mixer. One should not have to resort to the gain in Sonar. Between these two controls one should get a good signal then in Sonar use the faders to balance the overall mix. In BFD3 there is a global volume control plus the mixer.  
 
If one looks at soft synths as similar to a hardware synth and adjusts it in the same way one would for a hardware synth the gain should be left at unity.  
 
I may be advocating more work for the user but I think the results justify it.  
 

I second John's statements.  Those volume controls are there for a reason and it's also a good way to make sure the instrument itself is not spiking before it even reaches the channel.  Pentagon is notorious for doing that on some patches.

+3
 
Following John's BFD3 comment, I run BFD2 and always reduce all the faders down to -10dB
 
If you're auditioning soft synth patches, stick a limiter after the synth output to protect your ears AND your monitors.

A limiter may be a good safety device, but I am not sure that listening to the softsynth output modified by severe compression is the best way to audition the sound. Unless you plan to use the same limiter in the mix, the sound you hear during auditioning will not be the sound you are looking for. And if you are just going to turn off the limiter after re-adjusting the gain at some point, it would not be much less work than pulling the gain down before you audition and bringing it up to the level you want.

For me and many other engineers i have worked with or have viewed their workflow, The Gain knobs are set at zero and hardly ever moved. The fader is used to adjust the volume. The gain knob is pre effect, so take that in note and the faders are what is used 99.9% if the time to adjust volume, not the gain knob.
 
That said, if you are having volume issues with your synths, then you need to adjust one of these things, all the above, 2 of these things, 3 of these things, 4 of these things, 5 of these things or 6 of these things listed below:
1. Its the patch.
2. Some synths have a volume adjustment
3. Some have a gain adjustment
4. Some synths have input adjustment
5. Some synths have output adjustments
6. The velocity for the MIDI data that synth is processing
7. The audio track fader that is outputting that MIDI's sound it produces from its MIDI track
 
CJ

It is a shame that different patches on a synth are not all normalised to be of similar volume, this goes for soft synths and hardware.

Shambler
It is a shame that different patches on a synth are not all normalised to be of similar volume, this goes for soft synths and hardware.

It's the fault of whomever designed the patches. They're not designed with practicality in mind, they're designed to wow you when you're going through them. That's also why most of them are awash with reverb and way more frequencies than you need.