Behringer Crave

In terms of hands-on sound design the Behringer Crave is probably the best choice

It's a tiny but full modular system, completely self contained with everything you need to start making music. It's good for beginners because its elements are transparent and easy to understand. It's equally good for pros because It never gets old and you can do pretty advanced stuff with complex patches.

If you're not sure Crave is worth its money.

The crave is really nice but has also very limited modulation and utility options.

I’d recommend the Behringer crave or grind. I have the crave. The fun thing with those is the variety of sounds you can make with the semi modular architecture.

The Crave sounds great, but I think my recommendation would be for the Grind, as it has a much more flexible oscillator.

The crave is great. I have that and the edge and they are super fun together. ... The crave is basically a mother 32 and will teach you a lot about how synths work.

The Crave and Grind are much more suited to regular and live use but will sound very different.

Behringer Crave seems a more "pro" choice over Volca Modular, and although the sound wont be as experimental and fun to play with as the Modular, It has settled my mind as the most worth use of my (limited) money.

As I am on a tight budget, I was looking at a Behringer crave for 160€