Cakewalk Music Creator 3 vs. Apple's GarageBand

In an attempt to find a competitive Windows equivalent to Apple's GarageBand music mixing software, I came across Music Creator 3, a $30 download from UK software firm Cakewalk that seems to have some pretty established roots in the professional recording industry. Their claim is that you don't need any experience to use the software, but I beg to differ. The user interface is clunky, icons and controls are not intuitive, there's an overload of controls covering the panels, and for a beginner trying to use the software to simply mix their little ditty, good luck. I've only played around with GarageBand at the Apple store, but in the 15 minutes of me standing there I quickly composed a simple score on the MIDI keyboard. I'm searching for a used iBook on eBay and throwing iLife 3 on it.