brianb:
Hello Peter, I have looked for an existing product with not much luck.....the idea is to have a 60's style transistor radio body with an MP3 player inside that be controlled from external input decives on the radio. The music would be folders of specific genre's with 60's period music for each one...to give the sense that the radio is playing songs from when it was new. Anyways, the hacking of the mp3 player was something I had assumed would be done given the nature of the project. So, turn on the radio, select a folder, and let random play take its course....I have seen others hack MP3 players with arduino, so I was curious to know if this is possible.... I appreciate you feedback on this.
Well, I'm sure it would be possible, although it'll need some work to enable an Arduino to either select a music list of select individual tracks on an MP3 player.
Thinking laterally, have you thought about just using a separate music player per channel and have the buttons just turn on the corresponding player and turn off the others? I know it's a low tech solution, but I suspect it'd be easier to get working.