my weapons of choice are reason and ableton live.

reason took me a minute to learn. simple stuff like how to make the damn synths play drove me mad, but once i found some friends with advice and some tutorials i was good to go.

then i found live and i have never stopped since then. ableton live is totally more fun for me, since (as someone said above), you're not editing, you're making music. live lets me play around, jam out ideas, record it all and then go back and edit should i feel the need. i can do basic pre-mastering with plugins right in the program and then do any other fun stuff after that.

it really is all about what suits the way you like to write. i found these work best for me, but downloading demos and just messing around, and asking friends who use different progs WHY they use them will probably help you the most.

"to each their own" is a cliche that REALLY sums up audio software and who uses it! :)