Looking for controller build hints..

[Andy Mucho]

Hi all,
I was kind of wondering if anyone had any hints for a new fangled idea I
thought I'd build in my spare time..
Basically I want a big panel of knobs and sliders that will produce MIDI
CC's at MIDI rates, and/or optionally at much higher sample rates through a
parallel or high speed serial port.
Ultimately I'm looking at approx. 160 pots of various forms. I'm willing to
build since everything I see out there just doesn't suit my needs. I've
already got 3 Phatboys that are fine and dandy, and I thought about a
BitSream Pro, but nothing really seems to suit exactly what I want in terms
of twiddlies.
Not knowing anything about how to build this (but well qualified on the
low-level software department) I'm wondering if anyone has any hints..
My question centres around the principle for handling such a large number of
pots..
I presume this kind of set-up would be done using an A/D for each pot, with
some kind of wacky multiplexing to read the pots in a round robin fashion?
Or perhaps not?
Any recommendations on how to do this multiplexing?
Any tips for a CPU that can be *easily* interfaced into such a set-up, with
say onboard ram, flash rom, serial ports, and perhaps a simple way to
interface to an LCD?

And as a minor (but intriguing for me anyway) thought, how wacky would it be
to implement all of these pots/faders as automated pots? Are these radically
expensive and difficult to implement into such a scheme, or should I just
forget this?

Regards
AndyM