Originally Posted by: SuperhumanReaper is an excellent all rounder from tracking, editing and mixing audio (eg guitars, vocals, drums etc) to orchestrating, sequencingm editing midi with VST & VSTi capabilities. There are hundreds of free synths available, here are some of the better ones:

http://www.novakill.com/killerz.htm
http://www.kvraudio.com/
http://www.yohng.com/rhode.html
http://www.espace-cubase.org/anglais/page.php?page=freevsti

You can use these with Reaper which pretty much gives you a free home studio packed with hundreds of top quality plug-ins. Enjoy!

BTW If you want to pay for very high end VST's check out EastWest Samples and Toontrack from drums.

Hrmm yeh.. I went to the web-pages but they all look a bit complicated.. :) I'm ignorant when it comes to trackers (Fruity Loops) and synths (Toxic III). My first look at a tracker would have been in the early 90's.. I'd estimate 1992.. I fiddled around but never could make anything decent with it... I have the same experiences with synths.. I plug in my MIDI keyboard and go "OOoooh! that sounds nice.." and "Ahhh! that's that sound I have been looking for!" and that's about it. I want something that I can really "learn" and incorporate into my existing setup. A tracker is kind of like Reaper in what its purpose is.. the synth element of a tracker is really what I am wanting to "learn".. so I need something that I can really sink my teeth into but at first blush isn't really that complicated.