Your favorite synths

What soft-synths get the most use from you guys?
 
TAL Noisemaker is my goto when I need to build my own sounds from scratch or I want a lead or solid bass (and don't want convoluted interfaces or lots of options). It's probably my favorite all-around synth, and has been for about half a year.
I definitely pin it on Z3ta+ for good general presets (which replaced Superwave P8, another of my #1 favorites), though I don't tweak sounds a lot inside.
Finally I probably use CW TTS-1 the third most when I want pretty good sounding GM (and I'm willing to do just a little work to make them fit).
 
I'm just curious- I'm not looking to expand my library (as I had to purge it late last year), but I'm interested as I have a lot of soft synths I haven't gotten rid of but which DON'T get the bulk of my use (or any at all).

Of all my synths, my goto is the Arturia Minimoog V Original that they gave away for free a couple years ago!

Limiting to synths, as opposed to Samplers and rompliers.
 
G-Force Minimonsta is my favorite and I am having a hoot with my recently acquired XILS4.
 
The main runners up are Korg MonoPoly, Arturia Modular V, and Pentagon. For more modern sounds Z3ta takes a lot of beating.

Alchemy.  Rapture.  Z3TA.  DimPro.  Kontakt.  I've got a bunch of others but those are the soft synths I just everyday.  Even pros should stick w/ less choice until you figure out how to use a synth (or soft synth) best.
 
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Omnisphere.

Kontakt 5, is where I usually begin.

Hardware: Korg Oasys 76
Software:  Spectrasonics Omnisphere

The Delay Lama

Most of my projects include one or more instances of Rapture. It's a very versatile softsynth.
 

Well, I left Kontakt out because I do not really class it as a Synth, but as others have included it I will say that this is my most used VSTi by a big margin, that said I don't use the factory library that much. Mostly other NI and third party stuff.

If you had asked the question a couple of years ago, I think I would have answered more or less anything made by Spectrasonics. Omnisphere, Trillian etc... But lately I've dropped most of the sample based stuff and gone for products like Arturias synths instead (hate their licensing system though).
 
/M

I'm not a big synth user - more of a sample guy - but when I need one I'll usually reach for Zebra. If I had the funds, I'd probably add Blue 2 to the roster.
 
Honorable mention to the free OBXD, whose sound reminds me of my old Oberheim and is just as easy to program.
 

Omnisphere and then Kontakt.

Still like Dimension Pro, Z3TA3, and Rapture - all of those have gems in them.

But Omnishere is the pinnacle.

Omnisphere
 
Alchemy
 
Tone 2 Saurus

Mesh
I suppose it all depends on what sounds you're after as each has its strengths.
I generally favour Camel Audio's Alchemy as my first choice. I do have a lot of content for it and, it's a very Phat sounding beast of a synth.....very inspirational.
I also like Z3ta+ a lot........and now, I'm starting to enjoy Synthmaster as well.
Korg's Legacy M1 is also very useful for me as well as Rapture.
There's just so many synths with NI's Komplete, so I don't even know where to start (Reaktor will keep you busy for at least 1 lifetime)........installing K9 as we speak.
 
Sometimes, I fire up a particular synth for a song I'm working on and then get completely distracted with that synth......forgetting my initial plan. 
 
 

 
This is exactly what I would have posted with the exception of Camel audio...I should look into that one..and Zebra.Hey Mesh my K9 is on the way :) I have been using Kontakt 5 for some time now.
 
Like Mesh says it all depends on what you're trying to do...I probably falsely group a lot of what I call "dance music" into one group, techno,electronic, trance...all that stuff uses synths with sounds you can get from Z3Ta+,Rapture  or a similar synth...many are big on arpeggios and patterns. I usually use synths more as an ambient sketch pad or backing music...and the thing is you can make similar sounds on many of these synths...a saw wave is a saw wave no matter if it's sampled or the real deal...it all seems to sound similar, just a matter of how you adjust it and the workflow of the GUI.
 
The more bread an butter stuff like pianos and organs are pretty much a staple in all of the more decent ones. If money is tight there are some pretty good either free or inexpensive ones out there. If you have Rapture, Z3ta+2, Dimension Pro...then you should be able to get started with most of it pretty well...unless you trying to make some really odd stuff...that would probably be Omnisphere.
 
I like the setup in Kontakt/Komplete...you have mostly anything you would ever need all in one interface and it's all easy to reach and play with...saves time in the studio. If I were moving on up from what came with Sonar,  Kontakt or Komplete would be my first choice. If you buy Komplete, you get Kontakt in the deal.