I'd totally recommend some free tracking software:

Renoise : A FastTracker like Windows music software tracker with MIDI / VST / ASIO. Good for producing MP3/WAV music.

ModPlug Tracker : The MODPlug Player is a high-quality music player for your Windows 95/98/NT/2K or Linux machine. It enables you to play music MODules in CD-quality, with full customization of the sound. Output to WAV/MP3.

Produces formats compatible with FMOD, BASS libraries.

MadTracker : Similar to ModPLug Tracker produces files of XM, IT, S3M or MOD suitable for use with FMOD or BASS libraries.

PsYcLe : Psycle studio is a new breed of tracker which lets you create a virtual studio via patches/cables. It is a VST-based tracker letting you run VST's. Good for producing MP3/WAV.

I'm not up to date with free Midi tools.

Personally, I'm a fan of Impulse Tracker, but its some real old software, back from the DOS/WIN3.1 days.

What a "tracker" does is let you basically play multiple wave files at the same time and at different pitches and volumes. Where as a good Midi soundfont would simulate all of the stereo effects for you, with tracking you have to specify all of that stuff yourself since most formats only deal with single-speaker sounds, while allowing you to specify the panning, or volume ratio between the same sound playing on two speakers. To give you a visual idea of how this stuff, where a piano roll runs left to right, a tracker roll runs top to bottom and looks a bit like this bad ansi diagram:

| E-5 01 64 D01 | C-4 03 32 E01 | A#1 02 48 S85 || ... .. .. D01 | C-4 04 36 E01 | ... .. 32 S86 || ^^^ .. .. .00 | C-4 03 42 E01 | G#1 02 40 S87 |

So, you give up ease and comfort for power and control.

Just a note. No matter what the software outputs, you can use Audacity (free) to record it, and then export it to whatever format you need to use.

I tried a tracker once. I always wanted to learn to make some music, but I never understood how to use them. It seemed that you had to acquire your own sound samples to manipulate. (I forget the name of the software.)

Some of the newer trackers like Renoise and Psycle use Soft Synths as well as samples, so yuo have the best world. Also most of them can use stereo samples, have panning and volume envelopes, multi-sampled instruments.

Tracker is like a vertical piano roll. Notes go down the page,and tracks are in parallel down the page in columns.

All the trackers I mentioned above can output a rendered WAV file. You should't need audacity to record the audio, but you can certainly use it to edit the wav file after, and do some post production.

I used tracker to write a title track for a GameCube game.. so you can't say they aren't professional. It depends how you use them.

If you want to hear an example of something written in a tracker and output through a standard windows GM midi synth : Tracked Example

I did a little post production on it afterwards such as compression and limiting, stereo enhancement.