Woodcrest Studio is not one of the traditional, sterile recording studios nor basements where many musicians have gone into only to struggle with laying down their performance. Woodcrest is a converted house. There are 2 live rooms. One live room is 15'x30', 80% wood with vaulted ceilings, poly diffusers and a cloud. This room has a smooth decaying natural ambience and wonderful early reflections when left wide open (no additional ambiance-altering absorptioin/ reflective/ diffusive modular panels). The smaller room is 11'x13' and acoustically tuned for a loud poppier sound when left wide open. There is a 5'x6' free-standing isolation booth, setup in the big room when needed, modular accordion walls, glass panels, and gobos to achieve any setup imaginable. There is also an acoustically tuned control room where all the mixing takes place. Both live rooms can have their acoustical properties changed to achieve ambiences from clear, open and roomy to in-your-face dry and tight. Woodcrest Studio is a sound paradise for all genres of music.

Partial client list: Dianthus of Maria, Lyra, Leaving Autumn, Head Change, The Skirts, Stark Weather, Corrosive Non-Conformity, Ruggy, Perscey, Bradbard, Anderson, Ordeal by Innocence, Rane, Telic, Window View, Orion, Larson, Ascendance, Quantus Communications, Wolford, Fennario Coffee House, The Beautiful Door Foundation, and more...

Thomas Zartler, Jr. is Woodcrest Studio's owner and Chief engineer. Tom began his audio engineering career in high school by stealing his older brother's 4 track Fostex recorder. It took months for his brother to realize it was missing and by then Tom was already on his way, having found what was infused in him as a child: sound and song.

Born and raised in a family of musicians, stepping forward in to the experimentation and study of sound and song writing was a natural step for Tom. His homework was in his bedroom waiting for him to get home and press record. Tom lived this way for the time he had in high school. After graduation, he attempted to do what others thought he should - go to college and study for as long as it takes to find out what he was to be. Fortunately, he was employed at a music store during this time selling much of what is used in studios and reconnected to what he was: an audio engineer and a performing singer / songwriter.

Immediately Tom began buying gear to record and mix with starting with a Sansui wsx1 in 1991 and then moving up to consoles and reels. Tom had his place behind a mixing board next to a rack of preamps and effects tangled in wires, hunched over, digging through a crate of microphones to find that one that would complimentarily capture the source. Two years later he found a job interning at a studio housed in the basement of West Chester Music with James Celentano, West Chester's #1 spot for recording musicians.

Sweat-filled rooms packed with musicians' music adhered to the carpet-covered walls, saturated in energy - Tom worked here as much as he could. During this time he worked with many local musicians and writers, in the beat of this music college town. His interning came to a close with James' departure to New York City and Tom took over the studio. Several years later, West Chester Music was sold, closing its studio and driving Tom to open his own.

Tom then rented a small commercial space in West Chester for about 3 years, all the while wanting a enviroment for music that a commercial space could not offer. With his lease coming for renewal, Tom chose to buy a home for music to take form, a place he calls Woodcrest. Ten times larger then the previous studio, he offers a habitat where music grows, seeping out of the wood of Woodcrest after every completed session, continuing his passion of capturing the energy of sound.

Tom is known for his humor and lightness along with his ability to enable artists to bloom at Woodcrest with his 'innocent ear' approach. Tom built a warm, creative and comfortable habitat where musicians come to have their song's essence captured for others to hear and feel. Nestled in the woods, Woodcrest Studio pulses the sound of artists' soul and fuels this man's life of capturing that pulse which is felt and unseen.

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