Used on Grohl's vocals for "The Pretender", as stated by mix engineer Rich Costey in this March 2008 Sound on Sound interview. An image of the settings for the intro can be found here.

Very few plug-ins were used on the mix for 'The Pretender', but intro vocals were treated to Reel Tape Saturation and Pultec EQP1A, while a vocal overdub at the end of the track was processed with Sound Toys' Echoboy.

(...) Vocals: Mercury EQH, UA 175, Roger Mayer RM58, Waves DeEsser, Digidesign Reel Tape Saturation, Sound Toys Echoboy, Pultec EQP1A, SPL De-esser, Neve Portico 5042

"If I recall correctly, the lead vocal is doubled throughout the song. I used a Waves DeEsser plug-in on it, which I'm quite a fan of, as I've not heard a hardware de-esser that is competitive with it. The main signal chain after that was a Mercury EQH tube EQ and then a couple of vintage UA 175s. I hit the background vocals with the Roger Mayer RM58. I haven't mentioned any plug-ins yet, apart from the Waves DeEsser, because I hardly used them on 'The Pretender.' The only other ones I used were the Reel Tape Saturation and the Pultec EQP1A on the intro vocals, and the Sound Toys Echoboy on one of the end vocal overdubs.

"I used board EQ on all the vocals. The Pultec EQP1A plug-in on the intro vocals was to help them cut through. The Reel Tape Saturation was a plug-in that I had just bought. I wanted to warm the vocals up a little bit with it and make them a little bit crisper. Nothing too distorted. The Echoboy plug-in was used on a vocal overdub at the end for a tight delay. I don't tend to use plug-ins that much; they're really not that interesting, in my opinion. Finally, I also used an SPL De-esser on some vocals, and the Neve Designs Portico 5042 for a bit of crispness. It has its own sound, and I used it a lot on the whole Foo Fighters album.

"To complete the picture, I used an EMT plate and the room mics for general reverb, and my two EAR 660 limiters were my bus compressors, together with the Manley Massive Passive. We printed the mix to the ATR102, on half-inch analogue tape, from which it was mastered."

Used for the bass drum on "The Pretender", as stated by mix engineer Rich Costey in this March 2008 Sound on Sound interview. An image of the settings for bandmate Dave Grohl's intro vocals shows that it is the Bomb Factory plugin.

Drums: Quad 8 310, Pultec EQP1, API 550a, Neve 33609, API 2500, Lexicon 960, Urei 1176, Smart C2, SPL Transient Designer, room mics

"I had just gotten some Quad 8 310 EQs before I began the Foo Fighters project, and I found that cranking the s[**]t out of the mid-range with the Quads helped the drums quite a lot. On most of the album the bass and snare drum went through the Quad 8s, with severe amounts of mid-range added. Quad 8 grew out of Electrodyne and was very popular in the 1970s, particularly with film companies. I obtained some channels that came out of the Motown Sunrise console and they're basically three bands of EQ and a mic pre and output level, and the Q gets tighter as you push it up. The Quad 8s are a little bit rounder and warmer-sounding than similar API modules. I also used the Pultec EQP1 and API 550a on the bass drum.

"I had a bunch of different side-chain compressors on the drums that would change from song to song. On some songs it would be the Smart C2, medium ratio and fast recovery, on others the Neve 33609, the Urei 1176, the API 2500 or the Empirical Labs Distressor, and the SPL Transient Designer on toms. You can use the SPL to lengthen the sound of the toms. I don't compress all the drums at the same time, I'll compress individual parts and mix the compressed sound in with the natural sound of the drums. There was relatively little compression implemented on the drums in this song, because the band didn't care for it. They wanted the drums to sound more raw.

"Throughout the album mix I might have used a bit of Lexicon 960 on the drums for reverb, but the room mics — amongst them a heavily compressed foldback microphone — were so good that I tended to use those. I tend to like room mics that are on the darker side. If they're too bright, you can't turn them up very loud because you then also get all kinds of messy cymbal noises. One other thing to note is the drums that come in after the intro of the song. When the whole band is slamming accents like that, you want to make the drums sound very aggressive, and this meant pushing room mics, pushing compression mics and so forth. As I said, there were a lot of rides."

Used on "The Pretender", as stated by mix engineer Rich Costey in this March 2008 Sound on Sound interview. An image of the settings for bandmate Dave Grohl's intro vocals shows it to be the Bomb Factory plugin.

Bass: Neve 1073, Pultec EQP, Chandler TG1

"The bass consisted of three tracks: one recorded through an Ampeg SVT amp, one through a 4x12 Marshall cabinet, and one put through a Sansamp. I usually push all three tracks up and adjust their balance if I want different colours. I'll also mix in some side-chain compression, which in this case was a 1073, Pultec EQP, and Chandler TG1. The side-chain will usually be bright as hell and really compressed. One of the interesting things regarding mixing bass is that you may think that the bass sound on its own is fairly bright, but when you add the rest of the instruments you find that the top mid-range of the bass is usually missing. It's sometimes quite shocking to realise how much top end you need to add to a bass to make sure it cuts through a track. If you then hear the bass sound in isolation it may sound pretty uncomfortable, but in the midst of a swirling din of a dense track, that amount of top end usually works just fine."