Not wanting to pay a hefty license fee led me away from Ableton and into the loving arms of Renoise. It has an unlimited free trial with no restrictions, but a full license is $80 per FULL POINT RELEASE. That is: if you pay at v3.2, you don't pay again until v4.2. I paid once in 2012 and still haven't paid again yet. So it's cheap. But it's also fully featured, and surprisingly powerful. It's got a scary UI and... Source: almost 2 years ago

If you're in to music creation, give it a go. http://renoise.com. Source: over 2 years ago

There's plenty of software available for PC so it's easy to try out if tracker workflow is your thing :P I think Renoise is the most popular and most powerful tracker and there's a free demo available in https://renoise.com. Source: over 2 years ago

I've also used ZynAddSubFX, which is also a very powerful synth, though its interface (at least to me) is a bit of a clusterfuck. You could also try browsing this index of microtonally capable synths on the xenharmonic wiki. Source: about 1 year ago

The code for this can be found here on shadertoy! The audio was made with an Ibanez bass, Guitarix, Hydrogen Drums, ZynaddSubFX and Ardour! Source: over 2 years ago

Here is an additive synth - https://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.io/. Source: over 2 years ago

There are VSTs for Linux. Surge, Vital, and ZynAddSubFx are three prominent examples, as well as OxeFM, Dexed, and plenty I'm forgetting. Surge and Zyn also come LV2 and DSSI, which are native Linux formats. For those who don't know, the VST3 SDK supports Linux, and is released under GPLv3 by Steinberg. Source: almost 3 years ago