I'm Electronics Engineer and I have experience working with microcontrollers, in both 8 and 32 bits, in both assembler and c languages. Particulary, I used the next microcontrollers: MC68HC908JK1, MC68HC908GR4, PIC16F877A, PIC18F6520, ATMega8, ATMega16, ATMega32, ATTiny25, ADUC7026, LPC1769.
In reference with the project I think that use a microcontroller would be the easiest solution, with the only condition that the operation frequency be the highest as possible.
I'm anxious to get started and I hope to meet your expectations.
Regards.
Ernest.