I like the emotional appeal of the strings at the beginning and the militaristic percussion. The top line at :35 is when the samples start to sound noticeably fake, given the textbook uniform vibrato and slight pauses simulating bow direction changes. That said, I really like the contrapuntal nature of the melodic content and the tasteful, smooth transition at 2:02. There’s a lot of cohesion in the harmonic content, and you did a good job with incorporating subtle elements of phrasing and dynamic contrast. I wasn’t sure how much the top melody line was supposed to blend into the rest of the texture, but sometimes I thought you would do a better job of channeling the emotion here if you had only made it stick out so much towards the very end, instead of its vacillating prominence throughout the piece. Production-wise, I thought the percussion should’ve been a lot stronger to keep the mix balanced and the energy of the piece alive. The drums really faded into the background after a while, which changed the character of the piece hugely, as during the first 20 seconds or so of the piece, it sounded like the prelude to a great battle scene. Despite these details, overall you have really strong work here. You found a way to make a very niche instrumental palette simultaneously accessible and inspiring. Still, there’s some room for you to do more with a piece like this, and (if the other judges cooperate) I’ll look forward to hearing it in the next round. Keep up the good work, AriothXerril! ^_^

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.75/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1.25/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.75/2
Instrumentation and sound design
.75/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.5/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
1/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.75/1
Composite score
8.75/10

So far so good. I like the volume increase and the drums are nice. The melody is kinda all over the place but that violin sound is great! Maybe make a less complex melody for everything else to follw. Increase the percussion complexity or change it up through drops and build of some sort. The strings go everywhere and I'm not sure what tune to listen to. Overall, I really like it for the most part. I'd make a few significant changes though.