Using Pedal/Footswitch with Solo Synth

[AlenK]

In some of MIke's early demos (e.g., the ones he did for Sweetwater and Kraft Music) he used the pedal (which I prefer to call a footswitch) to enable portamento on a solo synth sound. How is this done? I note that page E-22 of the XW-P1 manual  (page E-21 in the G1 manual) shows "Pedal" as a virtual controller. But it is not listed explicitly as a virtual controller source later on page E-29.

 

Figuring it must be available as a MIDI CC I tried various things and was only able to get control in an arbitrarily usable way by choosing CC67 (Soft) and selecting "Soft" as the function of the pedal for the current Performance. "Soft" apparently doesn't normally have any affect on a solo synth sound (unlike Hold or Sostenuto) and so through a virtual controller I could do with it whatever I wanted to without otherwise affecting the sound. 

 

Is this how control of portamento time is done in the patch MIke was using in those demos or am I missing something far simpler? The small problem with using "Soft" is that it won't work unless I call up my patch from within a performance that has the pedal operation set that way.