How do you assign a command (key or controller) to select an individual track/channel?

Does anyone know how to assign a command to select an individual track/channel? I have searched extensively for this on the internet and the closest thing I found was a thread about using the environment and hex decimal code, but I couldn't make any sense of it.

Basically, all I want to do (and I'm sure thousands of other users want the same thing), is to be able to assign a button on my controller to select a channel. I have 8 buttons on the controller for this so I want to assign one button to each of the first 8 tracks, then ideally assign one to a mode change so I can flip up to the next bank of 8 using the same buttons.

So, to be clear, if I push the button it selects the corresponding track (not pan or volume, but just selects the track). And then have one button to move up to the next bank of 8 tracks.

Im sure I did this music more easily in Logic 9, but maybe not.