Syntakt - drum machine, idea generator. The DAW is essential for finished products but I find the Syntakt indispensable for getting things started.
Aodyo Anima Phi - My monosynth workhorse. The flexibility in oscillator types, routing, and modulation gives it a huge variety of sound design potential.
Dreadbox Typhon - Lately more a sound processor for other equipment, but that’s because the effects and filters sound so nice on it.
Microkorg - not the most user friendly instrument but the fundamental sound is great and it’s a bit sentimental to me.
Bastl Microgranny - to be honest, this was a bit of an impulse buy when Bastl had it on sale. Still trying to figure out how best to utilize it. A bit too fiddly to use as a traditional sampler, going to try using it more as an experimental drone box.
GSM E7 - Great sounding poly synth for the bread and butter sounds. Unique stereo modulation.
Volca Nubass - It’s an acid box with a tube, pretty self-evident why it’s cool.
Interesting sound design trick for ethereal chord pads with a wavetable synth: modulate wave scan speed with key/pitch tracking such that higher pitch means faster scan speed. Makes it such that each note’s timbre is always in a slightly different spot/rate than the other notes in the chord. Got the idea from a video on old school 90’s IDM techniques, where they would load one shot, single note samples from a monosynth into a sampler and then use looping/ping-ponging of the sample to play chords. Because it was the days before readily available time stretching each note would run through the sample at a different speed, and I figured pitch modulating wave scan speed would do something similar.