...of course we all (cough) design and flowchart (cough, cough) before we code. We never write on the fly, ever. Well not often, well not this week...( finishes coughing fit)

We also (well some of us) avoid ASM like the plague, unless we HAVE to get dirty with the hardware, when we need critical speed, in some interrupt routines or a nasty bit of maths that can be done with dirty assembler tricks.

There are some free 8052 HLL available. There is SDCC 'C' for the 8052, but the commercial vendors supply crippleware that lets you dip your toes into writing for the processor, but limits you to 2K of code. My guess is that your project would fit in 2K.

I would look very very hard at using some of the programmable volume control chips that one can now get, with simple two wire serial control, it would make this a "fag packet" job (sorry, UK English colloquialism.)

Maxim- Dallas do some nice parts, but usually only on stupid lead times.

Steve