Speaker Sequencer

Projects General Guidance
1

Hello all. I am an art student with a ever growing interest in arduino, I don't have one yet, and have a little experience with circuitry and even less with coding, but alas thesis is coming up in a year and I am trying to do a project that I think only arduino can accomplish.

I want arduino to control sounds sent from my computer to multiple speakers, in pre programed sequences. Im basically looking to have the ability control to chose which sound or track runs to which speaker. Using 8 tracks and 12-24 speakers.

Im thinking of starting slightly smaller for preliminary experimentation. I'm thinking of sending 1 track to four speakers in a preprogramed sequence. Im thinking it would look something like this

Audiotrack------------Amplifier-----------Arduino---------[switch]----------speaker
[switch]----------speaker
[switch]----------speaker
[switch]----------speaker with the arduino powering on off switches in pre sequenced (preferably with the audio track) compositions.

I guess my question is where should I start?

2

An Arduino and a bunch of solid state relays or something would work.

3

Can you save a track for sync?
Something as simple as a DTMF decoder chip, and put the DTMF tones on the sync track.

4

AWOL has a good basic questiion: How will all this be synchronized?

I'm an old Broadcast/Sound engineer; I'll try to help...