I programmed sound on my C64 as well until close to the very end then I got that music notation program. You could write music with it, print out sheet music, etc. Yet it sucked at making something you could actually use in another program.
Renoise is definitely tracker based but it has so much crap built onto it VST support and I believe DAW as well. I've barely scratched the surface on it because it goes so far beyond what the early trackers did.
There are some good video tutorials. You might take a peak at some of them to see if it looks like anything appealing to you. It is a lot less expensive than most music software.
I will def check it out. Speaking of expensive $499 for Reason don't get me wrong what it does is worth it racks worth of instruments and the latest makes great strides in being a flat out daw. But out of my price range $80 (Renoise) isn't bad tho.
I've used Reason before. Though it was not really my thing. I'd have to spend a lot of time with it to learn it's methodology.