yeah, cracking sucks. because of cracks, companies are making very unfriendly anti-piracy algos.
(i no longer can use photoshop, because when i called their hotline to activate, they told me i was a pirate and invalidated my Serial key. thats a lot of my f***ing money down the drain!)
so anyways, i am going to list my favorite Open-Souce/GNU audio applications.
Ardour:
http://ardour.org/
ardour is a Pro-Tools Rival application. it is Extremely Powerful, can load both linux plugin formats, and can load VST plugins with a very simple Recomple. this one is highly reccomended!!!!!!!!!!
LMMS:
http://lmms.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php
LMMS is an FL-Studio recreation. i havw worked with the development team and made songs for their "cool stuff" folder.
LMMS is the only other program to FL-Studio to have an amaizing piano roll (right click to insert, left click to delete). it Has a diehard community on their IRC channel, and they now have a windows port (though only the linux version can load windows VST plugins at this point)
Psycle:
http://psycle.pastnotecut.org/portal.php
Psycle is the only Tracker that i have actually enjoyed using.
why? i dont really know. this one has a very friendly, die hard community.
frinika:
http://frinika.appspot.com/
simple midi application with different types of notation.
and who could forget Audacity!?:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
self explanitory. amaizing application.
I recorded some of my first songs with it
Hydrogen Drum Machine:
http://www.hydrogen-music.org/
no words to explain this one.
bundeled samples are very good!
Rosegarden:
http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/
i havent used this enough to make a good comment, but i reccomend trying it.
Juno:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/juno6/
Analogue VST.
Frets On Fire:
http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/
not really an audio application. just a free alternative to guitar hero. highly adictive!
I belive in Open-Source and GNU software. why? because people can openly see what makes the program, and learn from it.
it is also why linux is so great. so many people work on linux, that it has become the most powerful operating system out there (do not even try to mention mac os. they Ripped off FreeBSD and put their own graphical user interface on top. its not their own operating system, rather a reskinned free operating system. if your using mac os, im sorry to say you got gipped).
my favorite flavor of linux: www.ubuntu.com
hope some of these applications come in handy to those reading this.
enjoy,
and god bless!