Most people consider themselves “creative” in some form or another. It could be drawing, music, dancing, whatever. And a lot of those creative people use tools to make their creations- paint, instruments, dance shoes, and so forth. They’re the “tools of the trade” so to speak.
Truthfully though, a lot of people don’t create nearly as much as they could because they don’t feel like they have tools that are “good enough.” They might want to produce an album, but figure they don’t have the “industry standard” ProTools, or even a decent computer to run it on. No good studio microphones, no expensive tube preamps, maybe not even a decent guitar.
But defining your creativity by what you don’t have is akin to saying your knowledge is limited because there’s things you don’t know. At some point, you will learn things and expand your knowledge, but just because you don’t know something doesn’t mean you’re not knowledgeable about anything. And saying you can’t be creative because you don’t have the best tools for the job is both wrong, and counterproductive to your development as a Productive Creative.
Let’s say you want to record a song. All you have is a crusty guitar and a smartphone.
Should this stop you from writing the song? No. The problem is, you don’t want to write a song- you want to produce a finished radio-worthy song. But do you have the tools to do that? Not really. Not yet.
Creativity means you create something with what you have. If your goal is to record a whole album of progressive metal with an orchestra in the background- no, you don’t have the tools for that.
But you *can* write the songs without having all the stuff. If you hear it in your head, then all you have to do to “create” it is find a way to record the idea.
You have to learn to separate the creation process with the productive process- they’re not the same thing.
This picture shows what I used to make my first “metal” demo for a friend. A Tascam digital recorder, an amp sim pedal, a drum machine, and a guitar. That’s it. No computer necessary.
Is it professionally polished and ready to publish? No, I don’t think so. But the fact is, you can do it with not much gear at all.
Grab a Tascam DP-03 or DP-08. They have microphones, instrument inputs, effects, and everything. Can you make an album with them? Maybe. Can you write songs with one? Absolutely. Even if you save them for later, when you have the tools to produce it correctly, you’ll have created something.