In this paper, we improve the performance analysis of the Rake receiver for the DS-CDMA forward link using long random spreading sequences (RSS's) by more accurately evaluating the correlation between the various interference terms. We also extend the analysis to the case of short (periodic) RSS. The accuracy of the expressions obtained in our analysis is verified by computer simulation. We show that for a given normalized spreading factor, the bit error rate (BER) performance of the Rake receiver is the same for BPSK and QPSK data modulation. We also show that when the channel delay spread is smaller than a data symbol duration, the CDMA receiver has similar BER performance for long and short RSS's. However, for large delay spread, the employment of short RSS's may result in severe performance degradation.