Wanting to start producing music :) Need some help please.

[fluffy_little_something]

Mixcraft is nice, it has a hardware-like user interface, for instance the mixer, and comes with many samples and plugins included, so you would not have to buy or download anything else for quite some time. They also have a very helpful support forum

[Mivo]

Wish I could "unsee" the mention of a new Electribe. There goes my Christmas-for-One budget two months in advance!

It is actually a good idea for a new learner, indeed, though ~$500 is a steep investment.

[RunBeerRun]

While I wouldn't bother with Reaper free(old pre-1.0 versions), I would demo the current version. The benefits of a new software musician using it is that you can easily load a track, right click it for input selection and how you want the output to be recorded, press "fx" to load instruments and/or fx.

With just that stuff it's like a cassette 4-track, easy to use. The complex features are more well, complex. I used the unlimited demo for 2 years before I bought my first license, I don't think they'd actually care, to the extent of you'll be buying many licenses over the years.