Metronome & Tempo Variations

[Damage Inc.]

Hello,

I'm new here and still fairly new to Reaper, but I've been stuck with a very annoying issue for quite some time, and I thought I'd ask the more experienced people here.
I don't know if there's already a topic or guide on this that I overlooked, but otherwise, here goes:


So, I've been wanting to do different things with existing tracks.
Such as recording my own performances to them or covering them 1:1 or creating drumtracks, etc.

Now, often I run into a track that's full of variations in its tempo.
And I don't mean time-signatures, although that might also be the case, I'm actually speaking of slight variations in tempos, either from riff to riff or even during a riff for example.

Obviously the problem is that the consistency of the metronome becomes rather useless because it sticks to its given tempo
and if the original recording is slightly off-tempo, they won't match anymore.
I've already found that you can insert markers to indicate a change, but I still run into segments that slightly slow down and speed up.

I can work with any slight or sudden changes when recording guitars and vocals or anything else live, that's just going with the flow, it doesn't throw me off.
But once you start working with tempos, grids and digital drumtracks, things seem to be very precise and mess up really easily.

Is this just question of first programming the metronome almost beat by beat or is there a better/easier way to go about it?


As an example:

What I was just trying to do last time, is creating a drumtrack (with a plug-in) to the song '5 Minutes Alone' by PanterA.
Now, this a VERY tight band with a very tight sound, but within the first minute or two of the song I went like "FFFFFUUUUUUU" soon enough.
Cause almost every next segment is at a different tempo, literally going from 95bpm to 94bpm,
then maybe 96 bpm and sometimes I couldn't even get the metronome to stick to beat for 5-10 seconds because the tempo would just slightly change within that short time-period.
It's like they recorded each riff on a differently set click-track or metronome and then cut them together later, or didn't use anything (but Vinnie Paul) to keep the beat at all.

WHAT can I do?...


Greetings.