In my opinion not thinking is the worst enemy of music. So, my advice is the opposite: think more, so when you play/make music you will be faster and you will be more satisfied with your work.
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It’s probably important to define what kind of thinking we’re talking about. It seems like what we’re actually talking about is the technical engineering side vs expressive/emotional composition perhaps? You can still put a lot of thought into the latter, but it’s just a different set of thought patterns than what you might use when doing complex routing or programming on some of this very powerful gear.
I think it largely comes down to practice and muscle memory, once you have that with mostly anything you can probably ‘switch off’ to a large extent and do music with less effort.
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I also use the piano for catching melodic & harmonic ideas as quickly as possible.
But for drums–and this is not a joke–I use the voice memos app on my phone. I set my phone on the table and bash out the rhythm that’s in my head. I have dozens of these stashed away on my phone. They’re absolutely embarrassing to hear but essential to me actually getting my ideas printed.
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I think I’m talking with thinking and ideas, more uninterrupted creativity. Trying to separate exploring and playing, and not the analytical/editing side of things. Like sketching, then colouring in later.
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SP1200.
Which isn’t long enough to be a post on its own.
Yeah it’s the uninterrupted part that’s important here. Everytime you have to stop the music to tweak or program something it breaks your flow.
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Of the things I own, I guess it’s guitar or bass station for ‘instrument’, but for gear I’d say sp404mk2. It’s super quick to start playing about with sounds (turn on, hit pads), and the functions are really well labelled and logically laid out. For now it has enough depth on sample editing for me, whilst keeping it simple enough to do quickly.
For me “not thinking” means making music with your intuition and reaching a state where you’re not aware of each movement of your limbs. So you’re only worried about the music itself, rather than the technicalities. Maybe this doesn’t translate to every instrument, but it’s definitely a thing for me when I’m just jamming
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We’re stronger for admitting it. 
Thinking is overrated, just strum!!
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I suppose what this thread brings to mind is the importance of prep. If it’s a groovebox, you want instant access to files, which pretty much means a deep but uncomplicated file management so you can load in whatever you want from what you have loaded in. For me formerly this was the Circuit combo, and I somewhat miss the Rhythm. But for ease of in/out, these days that device is the Polyend Tracker Mini.
In terms of loading a DAW this is where I find a pre-loaded template (also bringing to mind prep) really helps. I tend to have a pretty big template these days but the fact that it opens with a melodic track loaded and armed means I can get putting an idea down straight away, and to give me that Circuit feel I attach a Novation Launchpad Pro.
What I’m currently on the hunt for is a (mythical?) middle ground to add to my setup. What I’d love is an unconvoluted desktop box that has pads for playing ideas in, that is less reliant on a computer screen - though I’m not against it having some form of screen. I have a feeling I’d really enjoy something like a Maschine or MPC. I see this as being the closest thing to an acoustic guitar in terms of getting ideas down and then producing them more fully later later. I would be interested in it to reduce reliance on the computer, as I know people use these grooveboxes like an instrument.
Those are the closest I’ve gotten to flow states.
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Maybe you gel with the MPC - but i personally found the QLink thing cumbersome - 4 is just not enough for me. Maybe the X is better - or via external controller - but then you always have to lug around the controller. If i could rechoose, i would go for an X or Force. Maybe if youre a finger drummer - yes -that is where its good at - but i personally need automation on all of my tracks - to work with as little sounds as possible - but to change them over time - that is where the MPC isnt good at. Maschine is better in this respect, because it has better kit access - and also that morphing thing - and well the Arranger part on the MPC - it kind of works - but when you get into editing stuff - again cumbersome. I come to the conclusion that a push layout is just better if you are into Techno /House .
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OMG … what are my youtube recommendations going to look like now …
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The EMU SP1200? The one that goes for at least 5 grand? 
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Realistically Keystep plugged into Logic, so my journey of hardware exploration is going to come to its natural conclusion in the next two years.
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Piano.
Humming.
Daydreaming.
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Syntakt, first and always. In fact, quite often I start with Syntakt and don’t get much beyond it… I can do so much of what I want to do in that one box that now - after months of using it every single day - it kind of feels like an extension of my musical brain…
Digitakt is second although once I load in a longer sample or loop and start messing around with sample mangling and p-locks I’m kinda away with the faeries for quite a while… lots of fun.
Third, any of my basses but especially my Stingray which I will noodle on for hours. Not that most of my noodlings will actually make it into a track… but it’s a blast all the same.
Hydrasynth would be next in the list, awesome synth, although that sucker has an internal gain staging problem (which ASM are up front about to be fair) which can be annoying sometimes when creating wilder patches. Having to go through all modules to work out which bit is driving the synth engine into clipping is a bit of a flow killer.
Not that into music creation on a computer these days, I use my Mac for mixing multitracks output from hardware but not for creating stuff from scratch. But for me, Reason is the closest vibe to hardware on a computer… been using it since v1 and I’m still a fan of the whole rack hardware in software thing.
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Syntakt for me too.
Playing Piano second.
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Anything that you know well and can navigate through muscle memory. They better you know a thing, the less things have to happen between your impulse to do something and actually doing it.
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