I want to build something that allows me to record the output of an electret microphone onto a USB memory stick. Ideally, I'd like to be able to record mono/stereo at various quality settings, say, voice audio all the way to full music quality up to the limit of the mp3 format.
I am quite familiar with the analog end of this problem, and have done a number of medium complexity PIC projects over the years. But ... I have a few questions:
1) Is there are PIC part that can do the A/D at the appropriate rates for the desired audio quality settings? Is there a better part than a PIC for this?
2) Once I have the audio in memory as a bitstream, are there open source routines to create mp3 format files?
3) Is there a standard hardware/software library for interfacing with a USB memory stick and dealing with its file system.
Effectively, what I want is a small, low power replacement for a cassette recorder.
TIA,