Me too when I'm playing. I also do live sound for a small listening room several times a month. Haven't used the Mackie for that yet, using a Crest XR20 so no VCAs, but I do a similar technique with the busses on it.
Also an added bonus of the new groups on the DL1608 is doing parallel bus compression, something else that can be cool. I'll often do it for very dynamic vocalists - assign your vocals to your main mix and a buss, compress the buss but not the mains (or use a lighter compression) and blend to taste. Thickens the sound up and brings the quieter things up without squashing the dynamics too much.
