PIC and audio codec to record/playback .wav or .mp3?

[starfire151]

I'm looking to start a new project to be able to record microphone inputs from up to 4 microphones to a microSD card. I would like to record the input into either .wav or .mp3 file format.

In addition to recording the inputs to a file, the device has to be able to playback a .wav or .mp3 file into an external amplifier and speakers for two channels (stereo output).

The playback will not be simultaneous with the recording. The operations will be exclusive in time.

I was thinking of using a standard audio CODEC for input and output to minimize the external components. I did a basic search for audio CODECs and there is a TON of information and part numbers.

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of operation? Has anyone constructed a circuit like this using a PIC? If so, what flavor of PIC? From what I can see, this would be more applicable to a dsPIC family processor. Could this be done with a PIC18F26J11 or something similar?

Any information would be appreciated.