I am wanting a new (decent) music production programme for my PC but i want one where you can produce a record from scratch and mix songs as well. Also i need one with virtual synth and drum production on but i sont want o pay £350 for the top ableton or cubase!! thanks for any help.

Fruity Loops?

I think it's at www.flstudio.com

It's under £200, from what I gather.

Adobe Auditions is a great Music Production and editing software but it doesn't do much in the way of mixing

How about Reason (http://www.propellerheads.se/), dont know about mixing tunes on it, thats more of a sony acid area. But alot of people produce music with it on the "scene" :)

hmmm, im thinking either acid pro or propellerhead 4. acid pro comes with kontakt software instruments and can get for £150 so might go with that. cheers

Computer Music magazine (http://www.computermusic.co.uk/page/computermusic?entry=computer_music_119_samplitude_ 9) is good if you're just starting up. The magazine has a free DVD every month which contains a full software studio.
They're giving away Samplitude on this month's.

if you want to mix, get virtual dj, its a laugh! and its pretty simple to use. theres a demo for it on download.com

i have reason, its ok but you have to learn alot before you start churning out decent tunes.

i had fruity loops for a while, and its really basic, i personally wound not go for that one.

I think you will just have to fork out the dosh. I'd never advocate the use of file sharing programs like 'utorrent', and database websites like 'torrentspy'. It is too easy to get hold of software and virtual instruments that really shouldn't be free.

Acid pro dosent really make music from scratch as far as i can tell, you basically chop up some tunes or get some samples which are 'acidised' - determined bpm and stuff. Then you arrange them all together in the timeline, stick on some effects and feel pleased about your fresh sample based tune :)

when i say mixing i mean like my own remixes of songs, not like a live performance. would cubase studio 4 not be worthwhile? is it just a more restricted version of cubase 4?

Yep thats excatly what acid does :)
If you want to do it live ul need abelton live.
The cubase is a sequencer which means all it does is make all the virtual instruments you connect to it play tunes. Its not sutable for remixing tunes, but great for making them from scratch! Not sure about cubase studio, havent used it.