Level out Volume consistent without compression??

[Jt06]

Is there a way to level out the volume of a track without compression?? Any instrument, but my concern right now is vocals. some parts are way too loud, some way too quiet. A compressor does do the job for this, BUT, then the quality sounds bad.. you can hear all the breaths being taken very loudly, the c's and s's pop out way too much. what i've been doing is just playing through the region, and seperating the parts, and using the db leveler on the bottom left and adjusting it piece by piece OR, using latch and just riding the fader up and down.. (problem with that, is i always catch it 1/2 a second AFTER i notice its too loud or too quiet).. as you can imagine this takes a while, and with everything PT has to offer, i highly doubt there isn't a way to level out the volumes so it's all consistent WITHOUT using a compressor. Or maybe i'm just not using the compressor right? maybe using way too much?? Someone help me lol!! What do you guys do for this!??