Compression isn’t auto-levelling

It’s a common misconception that putting your vocal through a compressor will ensure that it’s dynamically ‘flat’ at the mix stage, somehow managing to keep output levels just above the backing track during louder sections, yet ducking it for quieter passages. Don’t confuse the effect of compression, which is to dynamically control the louds and softs within a performance, with that same performance’s output volume, which will need to be controlled separately to respond to peaks and troughs in your track. Waves’ Vocal Rider software is designed to control the latter, allowing you to feed the backing track to a volume control over your vocal part, ensuring level is pushed up, or reduced, as required. However, there’s nothing to stop you doing this manually, automating your DAW’s own volume fader. You can do this on the fly, by writing changes in real time, or draw in volume data in post-production.

To keep levels between vocals and a backing track balanced, you’ll need to use volume automation, not compression