:) mrm, it has been my experience as well, it's kind of strange when you watch meters with different voices and how they react.

An example is a thin voice that shows a lot of peak on an led meter, but shows a real low average on a VU.

I find, if the sound is there at all, to try to position the mic to get a meaty sound, not always possible to find it. If not, then I resort to a parametric to find the thin and cut it. This leaves lots of sibs, but the beef starts to come out in the bottom. I watch the VU, and see the averages increase a bit more. I roll off the sibs, and push it all up a bit more.

I used to do a lot of processing at that point, but, since you are in broadcast, there is, or should be processing in the chain. This would be your limiters and compressors. I try to keep things unsquashed through the system, and let the system chain deal with it. The only reason I resort to this is, extra compression and varied settings will also vary the loudness curve. So this method keeps things relative in loudness after it hits the chain.

Hope this helps a little,

--Rick

If you want a box that will do all those things, try a Symetrix 528E.
Around 500 bucks street in the US.
These are used in 90 per cent of North American radio stations to process voice.
It has an expander, compressor, mic pre, phantom power, eq and gate all in one box.
You can definitely get that "radio sound" with this box at a decent price.