Hmmm. Is that not what the magic (PC76-U) Dry/Wet knob is doing?
(I'm determined to "get" this)
Making an extra signal and adding the effect back in depending on wet?

Glenn, It sounds like something went wrong during recording.  I am guessing from the post that you don't have the option of redoing it, which is a shame.
 
A well-recorded vocal with the fader at the right level should be intelligible without compression, and the compression should just help it "jump out" more.  I am sorry you are having such trouble with this track.
 
I am a strange-sounding singer and in no danger of winning American Idol, but I sing at a very consistent level and stay in place in front of the mic.  I get frustrated with singers who drop parts of words, or who can't control their levels.  My pet peeve is when pick-up notes are not actually notes, but just some kind of sound with a word attached. Melodyne can't fix that.
 
SPEAKING OF MELODYNE...maybe that will help you.  I use it a lot to even out levels as needed.
 
Good luck, my friend.

Glenn,
 
yep.  Get extreme compression going using all wet and then back off into dry and see if that works for you.  It may take a couple of tries to get the right comp sound.
 
@

Thanks guys.
Lol Konrad It's MY vox so I have no-one to blame. I can redo it of course and maybe should, but I get into a learning/experience mode where I tell myself it's a good exercise to be able to fix a crappy take.
I do have many years of live band vocal experience but screaming into a sm58 is different from the pristine takes in recordings.
Expectations are higher too and I'm definitely a lot fussier as I progress here.
Melodyne is certainly on the list. I've heard lots of great things.
 
AT, that's what I'm settling into now and it's working pretty well, Thanks

Beepster
Sorry for incessant posting (it's hot and I guess I'm bored) but I just had a cool idea. I think I'm going to try using a parallel type set up with TH2. Like for example have a cleanish guitar tone and sends to a bus with a distorted tone and maybe another with some freaky phaser or harmonizers going on and automate the sends to blend in and out of the effects. Might be cool. I think if I put the sends pre fader too then I could raise and lower the clean track as well and still get the effected sounds.
 
hmmm...

Try it with bass guitar. Send a little of the clean bass into a bus with distortion on it. Really fattens it up and brings it out of the mix. 

M_Glenn_M
but screaming into a sm58 is different from the pristine takes in recordings.

 
Not for me. They're both [link=mailto:cr@p]cr@p[/link]. Ask Mooch.

Lol,  we do what we can.

Side Chaining is a cool technique....Great article by Bill
Sidechaining in SONAR
By Bill Jackson
Sidechaining is a mixing technique that allows you to have one plug-in affect the track or bus it's inserted on based upon another signal's properties.
http://www.cakewalk.com/support/kb/reader.aspx/2007013049

sharke

Beepster
Sorry for incessant posting (it's hot and I guess I'm bored) but I just had a cool idea. I think I'm going to try using a parallel type set up with TH2. Like for example have a cleanish guitar tone and sends to a bus with a distorted tone and maybe another with some freaky phaser or harmonizers going on and automate the sends to blend in and out of the effects. Might be cool. I think if I put the sends pre fader too then I could raise and lower the clean track as well and still get the effected sounds.
 
hmmm...

Try it with bass guitar. Send a little of the clean bass into a bus with distortion on it. Really fattens it up and brings it out of the mix. 
 
 

I've been using the triple cloned bass track method (with one overdriven) but I will give that a try. Thanks.

just throwing that out there, since we're on the subject and it could help some- if you can't seem to get the result you want with standard NY compression using the wet-dry knob, it's quite likely that your material is too mid-heavy for it to work properly and you could try using the bus method and inserting a notch filter or eq before the NY comp and taking out some of those mids until it sounds more balanced.