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.
One up-front thing about sound design on it: while it is possible to make patches directly on the box, it’s something that really ought to be done on the software editor (the polyphonic version coming out later this year is going to have a much bigger screen). However, the patch structure itself is pretty straightforward, it’s got a lot of options but conceptually it’s much like any other synth. The only part that gets a little engineering-ish is the modulation options that require other modulators feeding into it, e.g. to make a wavefolded LFO you need to have a wavefolder modulator using an LFO as its source, but the wavefolder by itself doesn’t produce anything. Both the box and the software editor will let you see the current oscilloscope output of any modulator so you can see what it is, or is not, doing.