Alternative to V-Vocal?

Chad.....

MC or any DAW only records what you put into it. Some words being louder than others ..... first thing I would look at would be recording and mic technique. 

Is the singer consistent? Is the singer staying the same distance from the mic? Is the singer using proper mic technique? 

When a loud, powerful, note is coming, the singer should anticipate it and through experience, back away from the mic. This comes from experience and knowing how for to back off.... you should watch a professional singer as they sing and pay attention to this aspect.  

Sometimes when you have notes louder than the rest, a simple volume envelope is all you need to tame it. You should however, be aiming to get consistent vocal levels throughout the track. Having that as a starting point makes everything that follows sooooo much easier. 

V-Vocal is pitch correction software....I use Melodyne for that...and while it is totally possible to use it to correct volume issues, let me just say it is so much easier to use a volume envelope... or even to use audio processing to reduce gain on that specific note or notes.... I do use the process audio function quite often so as not to need the envelope for that purpose. 

Compression and EQ... while they serve a purpose should not be used as a substitute for good recording of a track to begin with. To someone new to recording.... my advice would be to work on getting those track levels consistent from square one and not to use FX to try to fix what is essentially a poor recording in a track. 

Notice in this screen shot below....(from an old project) that the vocal tracks are very consistent in levels. There were actually a few places where the vocals were "over" and they appear as flat tops.... not good to have.... but I did not record this vocal track in my studio it was sent to me that way..... aside from the overs, the levels are consistent which is the main point. 

In reality, this track should have been recorded again (due to the overs)  but at the time, we both were lacking the experience necessary for us to realize that at the time.  Overs are noticeable especially in the picture below at the second marker.... notice the flat bottom on the wave at that point.

The overs came from the singer being too close to the mic and belting out a strong high note. Proper mic technique would have solved that at the tracking stage. I can not emphasize just how important it is to get it right at the tracking stage. 

I don't know of an easy way to over come that kind of problem. 

That kind of falls back to the writer of the song ...and I know, as a writer, the argument put forth to defend that..... but..... I also believe a writer's main job is of course to get the song out... BUT a secondary aspect to that is to make it singable in an easy to deal with manner.... if the singer has to constantly jump low to high and back, that song will be uncomfortable to sing.... not to mention , listen too. 

Throwing a compressor on it doesn't solve it.... that usually will only make it worse.   The only options I see are what you already know....  use envelopes and process audio/gain to smooth it out. 

When I go through a vocal track with melodyne to fix the pitch and other nits.... I take it literally one note at a time.... at most perhaps a vocal phrase no longer than a sentence in the lyric. It takes time, but the effort is worth it. you may have to do the same.  While it would be cool to have a button you click and it all happens exactly like you want..... well, that isn't a reality yet. 

Perhaps you can post a link here in your post so we can go to listen to what it is you are having an issue with. Put the song online and link to it here. After we hear it, perhaps we can offer sone other sort of advice that may be useful. 

glad you found a simple solution.