[chefandy]

Yes, there are a TON of free tools and endless instruction on using them. If you move your budget up to making one-time payments for things that cost less than one month using a subscription service, you get an astonishing breadth of new options. Beyond that, so many of the more expensive music making tools are one-time payments rather than subscription services. Buy Ableton once? You own it. You can get the latest version at a discount, but there's absolutely nothing stopping you from using the version you bought, in perpetuity.