ya Slam I agree with Rep I havent taken any music theory classes either, and to answer your question......
Reason 4 is AWESOME, and actually really easy to use (at least for me its easier than Fruity Loops)..... Fruity Loops is great for techno and dj(ing) type shit.... a little cheesy at times, but if you know what your doing you can make some really rad productions....
I say go for Reason straight up.... but I just love that program, fruity loops is tight too
Garage band is a fun looping like program.... you can make sone cool Voices in Garage Band though, so I say just keep it around you might use it for some things
REASON (probably can torrent it im not sure) is the way to go IMO
and FruityLoops has a Mac version now.... Ableton is awesome too
thanks dudes, just a quick jam, took hardly any time I didnt really focus on this one, just wanted to get back into reason