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Where is the musical line drawn?
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I can play keyboards - honest gov - ok I can put together some chords, play some melody, all mostly slightly out of time 
If it all gets too complex for my old shaky fat fingers, I reach for the assistance of an app 
I can program drum beats, but sometimes it's just easier and more fun to take another beat and mold it, shape it, warp it, trash it 
I have done singing with some bands for fun, but my vocals are crap if compared to a trained singer 
I use apps to make me sound better - doesn't everyone?
I use loops when needed. Make my own and trash other people's. I trigger loops while jamming because for Christ sake my playing skills are never going to be beyond doing something simple.
So....does this mean I'm actually making my own music, or does everything have to be done by my own hands?
Where do you draw that line between warping some prerolled and being an instrumental virtuoso musician - what constitutes your own music.
No right answer, just your thoughts 
Comments
From a listener's point of view, how a track was put together is totally irrelevant, the only thing that counts is does the music say something to you/move you/make you dance. When I listen to tunes I really don't care if the musicians were virtuosos or if everything was sampled from old 45s, as long as the track has some resonance then it's good.
Ultimately there's plenty of really boring music played by virtuosos, and lots of really great ideas put together by people who can hardly play a note. I know which I prefer
Using apps like Launchpad - for me at least - can feel like remixing someone else's music rather than creating your own. But if you are creating your own melody lines or putting together your own chord sequence, and using loops or patterns that others have created as backing, that still feels like you are making your own music. Everyone is influenced by music they have heard, but take a bit of this and a bit of that and mix it up in a unique way, and you have your own music. In my own view.
A musician playing music on a piano or guitar didn't invent or build the instrument, neither did they create the systems of music theory and technique that underpin and facilitate the performance and perception of the music.
When I am listening to something someone else has made, I do not care how they made it, just if it sounds good to me or not.
When I am making my own tunes, if I use others loops or MIDI files or even synth patches, I do not feel like they are my own and I do care, regardless of whether it sounds good or not.
Just call me crazy
So much AMEN.
None of it matters so long as it moves you but I do have a soft line of sorts:
I'm totally fine to comp together a vocal from 15 takes but I really believe, like deeply, that other than the as-an-effect use case, autotune is the mother fucking devil. I say 'soft line' because not only am I fine with comping a vocal from 15 takes but I have no gut-turning aversion to quantizing, drum replacement or virtual instruments; there's just something about autotune that I find completely offensive to the beauty of human-ness.
"Autotune is mind control." -Thom Yorke
Yes, as a listener you have a different perspective than you would as a musician/producer. I personally prefer to record performances rather than enter MIDI or canned loops (except for drums where I happily use loops), but I recognise that it's preference, nothing more, and that some pretty cool artists use both MIDI and loops.
That's why Melodyne was invented
I use Melodyne on most of my tracks, but I do my best to just fix basic pitching rather than taking out all of the human wobble (for want of a better word). The problem with auto tune is that it removes a lot of natural drift in the pitch of the vocals so they end up sounding like the audio equivalent of the uncanny valley.
Sometimes I'm the chef, sometimes the waiter; the food really doesn't care.
I have thought about his topic a lot since getting into music making on my iPad. Its kind of like "Movie Magic" you know that CGI but you still enjoy the movie. Whether or not you are using samples, other peoples drum loops or whatever. There are an infinite amount of possibilites out there.
and like @JeffChasteen said. the Food don't care, and I will add that most the people ordering the food don't care. I say most because there is always that one guy that over analyzes everything to the point that they cannot just sit down and enjoy anything but thats another topic all together.
There is a really great ted talk that is sort of on this topic.
My preference is to only sample the music I have created myself- apart from spoken word vocal samples. I never download/ use/ purchase/ loop packs. I would however use a sampled bass drum or a percussive element. I'm not against it though- I do very much enjoy listening to music with sampled phrases in it. I think I wouldn't feel justified in sampling a phrase that someone else has made until I can actually produce a song by myself which I am entirely satisfied with- which could be added to the pot.. sort of thing.
There's an endless beach with infinite lines drawn in the sand....
Mr. Jon "Pants of Death" Rawlinson cites the funny example below that starts with using drum loops and ends with goat farming, from this article at TSTR:
http://thesoundtestroom.com/lets-talk-about-sets-baby/
http://thesoundtestroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/cheating.jpg
Music line drawn by Composer's sketchpad app. It is the 'where' to start.
Absolutely - but the key thing (for me) is not the skill of the musician or the process etc but simply the end result.
I remember a lot of my metal guitarists friends in the 90s used to really disparage the Edge from U2 because he "couldn't play" and used the delay pedal as a rhythmic device, but in truth he was a much more original and interesting guitarist than most metal shredders - I'm not a big fan of U2 but I can appreciate that he was very creative as a guitarist. On the other hand Hendrix was both super-technical and incredibly original and innovative, best of both worlds.
Neither does the diner, as @richardyot eloquently pointed out.
I've found that folks who get religious about "purity" in other people's music are usually hiding some insecurity or another.
Every artist has his or her own creative "boundaries", and endeavors to stay on the side that makes them feel like they're being creative. I've been playing drums for 30 years, but can't read or play music "proper". So, I use instinct samples and arps to compensate for that. Can I be considered a "musician"? It depends on who you ask, but I'd just assume refer to myself as an "artist", instead, and deliver a finished product that I feel is distinctly original. In the final estimation, the finished product either finds an appreciative audience, or it doesn't. I structure all my own rhythms, and try to avoid working w/ too many "loops" while sampling.
Here's a great contrast. In my mind, Premier is an artist. A giant. Solar is a hack. He takes Cerrone's "Supernature" and tosses in a beat. That's it. It lacks any kind of creative input.
Gang Starr: Mass Appeal (DJ Premier)
Guru: Divine Rule (DJ Solar)
Peace to Guru. He was a weird dude, but a top-shelf MC, and he got sold a bill of goods by Solar. His time in Gang Starr produced the greatest hip hop there is.
Ultimately, whether you use pre-fabricated elements or not, we are all united in having chosen the wrong end of the art-stick. We should have been selling shark carcasses for $50 million a pop.
That's why the boutique cassette crowd is wise. They still offer up a physical package, usually w/ pretty jazzy presentation. Silkscreen, limited-edition cases, a small hand-drawn picture or design inside.... And people buy it. It's like a little culture, and folks love to feel included.
Keep supply low to drive demand up.
Love that goat story.
I followed a guy on IG; who made some really good stuff. I wanted to support him, so I went to his Bandcamp page and ordered his tape. Run of 200 copies. When I bought mine, there were 9 left. The next day, I logged in, and he was sold out. 9 tapes sold in one night @ 10 ea.? I'll take those figures.
Maybe, but personally, I get no satisfaction out of working w/ pre-fab loop kits found in those Novation apps. It just can't feel like mine. If that's what works for you, great. And I've no doubt that if you recorded a launchpad performance, using the loop packs exclusively, It'd sound great.
But is it yours? That's the question that defines my workflow. I can sit there and play w/ those packs, and have a grand old time, but it's nothing I'd put my name on and post up.
Not judging, of course. Like I say, it's a very fluid line, and if it brings you joy, what else is there to say?
Many pop singers since pop exists don't write the lyrics for their songs but still they are on the cover, with little credit to who played the instruments, recorded, mixed, mastered, who shooter the pics and all the others.
Most of classical musician live out of playing "the same, 200 yo, tunes" all the time.
In the '60-'70 in Italy many pop hits were covers of English tunes with Italian lyrics, sometime good, sometime less good.
So no. There is no line as long as we can feel that our music, performance, remix, mixtape feel original to us.
I hear and agree in my gut about loops, BUT as a lyricist/barker etc I am well used to walking into the rehearsal room where a drummer is putting out a beat, a bassist starts to slide around until he finds his groove, the guitarist begins chopping in time and I think of something, anything, and find a word, a phrase, a state of mind, and somewhere from there something comes from nothing. I always think that those other guys, those musicians are like fleshy loopers, putting out something of their own, not mine, which I maybe tweak ("slower" "too high"), but I make my own in some way thereafter....
As did I.
It's an entirely personal thing, but I don't use loops etc. I like to do everything myself on my material and while I'm sure a great drum loop may do a better job than say, my sometimes 'left-field' drum programming (for example), I get the satisfaction that whatever I do is my own work (influences aside).
So, in iOS land, while I've enjoyed messing around with (say) the launchpad packs, I just see it as a bit of fun and not anything I can really work with.
I've played guitar for a long time, so I have a fair bit of technique and theory, but I find virtuosity pretty uninteresting without imagination. Equally, I feel that great ideas can be better realised with some degree of musical craft.
If your name is on the copyright, it's yours.
So from reading all the posts here, it seems like everyone draws their own line in the sand and walks it. Its up to you how far to either side you want to explore.
As you walk the line, you might draw another line in the sand and jump over to it, hang out on that line for a while then jump back on the other line.
Amen. Neil Young packs 10x the flavor into a 3-note solo than Satriani ever delivered on his best day.
The drugs help.