Does a piano player relying on a piano not count as “gear enabling an artist”? If there’s no piano does that true artist start playing a napkin instead because it’s within their reach?

You will be surprised when you find out how many amazing piano players have practice in a piece of wood/cardboard with the keys drawn/carved

As a piano player I definitely depend on the existence of a piano for me to play. Better tools absolutely enable artists to make better things faster — Yo-Yo Ma can make a cheap cello sound amazing, but he can make an expensive cello sound even more amazing.

And he should get an amazing cello! But most people that buy gear they do not need it nor use it!

I mean, the OP was clearly referring to music composition:

> The divide from putting down an idea when it hits, to working it into something, has always been really high.

And in terms of music composition, you can probably get away with just humming out the tune and leave the rest for the producer to figure out.

If they relies on a piano of a very specific brand, and can't play a cheap alternative at all, then yes. But I don't think most pianists are like that.

A DAW is near essential for making EDM. It's actually quite cheap compared to the instruments you need for other music styles.

Sure you can make EDM with more limited means, but a DAW opens up basically everything.

And many think that for art more options is better, however the greatest works were done with huge limitations. Beatles 4 track, Bladerunner no CGI to name 2.

If by "everything" you mean better production quality, sure, but I doubt you'd do your best sound-design work laying down on your couch with your airpods.

I think the only thing this enables is for you to "finish" your songs on the ipad itself, which is not the game changer the OP is saying it is.

Saxophone player of adequate standard here ... yeah the gear shouldn't matter and you can get good stuff out of garbage with the right pre-existing skills and attitude. But on the other hand I've upgraded my two main instruments recently-ish from low/mid range instruments to high end, and in both cases my playing improved a lot instantly, as suddenly I didn't have to work so hard to get the instruments to cooperate[1]. However having to work around the limitations of my old instruments also improved my skills too.

[1] having a good soprano sax that basically plays itself feels like cheating, but one of the reasons for that is having developed the skills to keep crappy sopranos cooperating reasonably well for so long too.

Glad for you, is really nice to have a nice instrument, even inspiring, I play guitar many years and some guitars when you pick them up, they almost inspire/invite for music, while others they make you want to quit music altogether. So i am with you, i wish everyone could work themselves up to a nice instrument. I doubt an app in an ipad can have this meaning to someone.