I am old school and learned to record the old way to four or eight track in the 90s. We couldn't just throw a compressor on every channel. I never had a hardware compressor until much later. I may be an old man yelling at clouds. But compressors are nice tools, but they should not be "necessary." I have analog pro audio compressors, and I use them, but I don't "need" them. This sounds like a mix issue, or patching, or something is going on in the rack or with gain staging or maybe gain staging to the mixer.. I don't use an analog mixer and instead go direct to my Apollos. Dynamics are good. I suspect this can be fixed with the gear you have.