So, I was playing around with this site, and I made something pretty simple with only 4 sounds, and it was about 20 seconds long. I was going to make it into 5 minutes, post it on YouTube, and then see what kind of feedback I got. Only, I ran into a problem: http://soundation.com/studio is not free.  

So, my question and the help I need is this: what is something that is as simple as that, and is completely free to use? I would prefer a program that I could download, instead of having to go to a website. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

pi0x :  
MechaMento :  
kazenoklonoa_45 :  
thephantombrain :  

Maybe you guys have some good ideas since I did go to pi0x's thread first for suggestions, but couldn't find any promising 100% completely free programs where you did not have to have a paid subscription to use everything for that program. 

Have you tried Audacity? Audacity is 100% free and is a simple music mixing tool (although I'm not sure how simple). I'm not sure if it can create sounds from scratch, though. However, it can record sounds. You can find it here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Here are a few downloadable tools that are completely free.

LMMS is free and requires no payments after use. It's what I use since I'm yet to afford FL studio which is what it is a model of. It takes a bit of getting used to but it is relatively simple. It covers a range of synths, some emulators or clones of instruments, including it's own ZynaddSubfx where you can create your own sounds.

Not only that but it has a sampler instrument and you can import .wav or .ogg files to your song. For instance if you wanted to use a drum beat from another song you can add it in, change the speed of it to fit the tempo or chop it up beat by beat and rearrange the pattern that way.
You can download it here...
https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/releases/tag/v1.0.3


If you want to be very basic and make midi songs (which you can then import into other music software that supports midi) you should use anvil studio. The only downside with that is the fact that it uses the basic sound pallet through playback.
Download Anvil Studio here...
http://www.anvilstudio.com/



If you want to make chiptunes you could use Famitracker. It's a little complex to master but you'll pick up the basics if you watch a decent tutuorial on youtube. You can download it here...
http://famitracker.com/downloads.php


supernerd117 : There are a few sounds you can make from scratch, though most are mainly noises like white noise and so on. You can't make much with it, but yeah Audacity is great for mixing and I also recommend that.

MechaMento :  
zanderlex :  
supernerd117 :  

Something with sounds already there like Soundation is perfect. I don't want the one you recommend in pi0x thread, Mecha; where you put the different tools on there. I couldn't figure out how do crap. I want something with noises already in the program, but a crap load to choose from. 

thing1 : Sounds as in instruments or loops? Because LMMS has a ton of preset instruments.

MechaMento : I want something like soundation. That site was so easy to use, and the sounds were already there. I just had to make something out of them. 

Soundation is freemium which isn't really free. The following programs should be entirely free and keep in mind that I haven't tried either of them. Let me know if either would be suitable for game music possibly.

I assume you're running Windows and not Mac, Linux?

http://www.audiotool.com/product

http://www.buzzmachines.com/whatisbuzz.php

If you are wanting a website with pre-made sounds, have you considered trying Nudge?  I don't know much about it, as I haven't used it much, but it looks like it should be simple.  And it's something you just make in your browser.  Check it out.

http://inudge.net/

Another program you could probably try is Caustic.  It's a little bit like LMMS in the sense it's not so straightforward as that website you used, but it's not quite as complex as LMMS.  It's also free to download and use.

http://www.singlecellsoftware.com/caustic

I hope this helps out.  There aren't many good programs that let you actually just have all the sounds made and ready to use.  I remember there was a cool one in the past called Dance EJay by Empire Interactive.  It was technically a game, but the PC software did let you make legit electronic music, and it had tons of pre-made sounds built in.  The program has been discontinued though, so I don't know where to find it.  But if you can find that program, it's pretty great.  I used to play with it in the past.

That's something I have been wanting to do for a while, sort of played around with it back in school.

Need a good sound card though.
Have you found any good mixing programs?

When you say you want to make beats I'm assuming rap beats...lol
Alright to break it down, if you don't want to sound generic as generic can be and get hate on your music stay away from these "easy to use"
websites, if you can get fl studio~piratebay~ get it and mess around with it and watch a few tutorials on youtube and you will realize making beats isn't really hard at all.
Btw knowing how to play the piano will help you 10 fold, but it isn't really necessary
and hey, you can always use a sampler plugin on fl studio which would make some pretty sick beats (well, if you do it well lol) but that's the easiest route. The benefit with fl studio is that you can download sound packs and import them into the application... or you could record your own sounds and tweak them with the plugins that come with fl
I know many of you guys will be like it's too complicated, too hard, too time consuming, too blahblahblah... 
well think of it as an investment- the more time and effort put in- the better the results that'll come out
~
I usually don't make my beats since my producer is a lot better at it (he plays like 10 instruments... not even exaggerating) but I try to stay involved in the process to direct him to using certain sounds and such, but the benefit of using our own recorded instrumentation makes everything sound a lot more natural and much less synthesized which is what I personally prefer, but yeah I've dabbled in the beat making scene myself a bit, and I've come to the realization that if you want your beats to sound good you really should put the proper amount of time and effort into your work.
~
Good luck guys