Free Music Programs?

[dinopoke]

I'm interested in making electronic music casually and was wondering if there are any free programs I can use to compose stuff. I know Audacity is a decent editor and supports VSTs but I was looking for something where I could create stuff on the fly and play live (ie like with a midi keyboard). I'm not sure what the type of software is called (Soft synthesizer? Digital audio workstation?) but essentially, I want a downloadable version of Audio Tool (http://www.hobnox.com/audiotool.1046.en.html) but with a midi keyboard and support for VSTs. Or something like that. :P

[Pauly]

unfortunately i don't really have much experience with any free software bar audacity and as far as i know there isn't really much that would be all that helpful for what i think you need it for. (glad to be proven wrong though if anyone knows of any). i would always recommend saving up and buying something. with some decent software it opens up a world of opportunities.

[Zan]

Use Reaper.

It's great. It's not free, but the only difference with the 'trial' version is that it will ask you to register upon startup. It's pretty simple to use and not clunky at all. The interface reminds me of Sony Vegas a tiny bit for reference.

I'm pretty newbie at this stuff, but we switched to this from Audition in class last semester and I much prefer it.

http://www.reaper.fm/download.php
Oh and the download is like... a few meg. :D