Advice on a non-standard sequencer project

[grahamg]

Hi everyone,

I am a fairly experienced programmer with a basic understanding of electronics, but am new to PIC programming so please bear with me if my questions seem naive.

I am interested in building a stand-alone sequencer-like device that I could use to control a large number of LED lights (128).  I would like this device to be able to load a MIDI file from a swapable storage medium (like the BankStick) and then drive the lights based on the MIDI event sequence.  It is important that I be able to control the playback tempo in real-time using a potentiometer or something similar.  

Additionally, I would very much like to do some pre-processing on the MIDI data so that the mapping from MIDI noteon values to LEDs may not always be the same.    

So I am wondering if this is all possible with the MBHP?  Can anyone see problems with the following or suggest a better setup: use the core module, 4 DOUT modules, a BankStick, and the filter application to do the pre-processing.  And possibly the LCD and monitor modules, which would be nice, but re not essential.  

Can the BankStick be used in this way?  How would one load MIDI data from a PC or synth to the BankStick?

Thanks!

Graham