For the switches the best choices are the already existing heavy duty guitar foot stomp switches.

For the moment a microcontroller development board is the choice for the brains of the footboard. For this I have chosen a Teensy 3.2 development board. This is for two main reasons:

1. All the inputs have Interrupt capablities ( instant switches )
2. It has a built-in Generic USB MIDI Device setting ( plug'n'play MIDI footboard )