Still an old duffer, listening back to old selections reckon I was better then than I am now but that is not saying much. Have moved on to different genres like Ambient which are easier. Have ditched half the equipment I had and hardly buy any vinyl, it’s mostly digital.
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I’m definitely better, still a bit shit mixing too early in tunes due to being impatient, but with occasional surprisingly brilliant flourishes. Can’t scratch but tries. Definitely better tunes, but sooooooo spread across genres it’s much harder to decide where to start or go with a mix or set. Spread across formats too so took laptop and a massive box of records to a gig the other week and played five of the records, two were 7s. Just recovered from a slipped disk. Haven’t learned.
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Am I any better now? I probably am. I started late to djing and also mixed it with being a vocalist in a number of bands. Had to pay the bills so spent years playing in Clubs and Pubs doing current music and also numerous parties. I did enjoy it but didnt like a lot of the music so stopped doing all that about 10 years ago. Then started playing at home, all the music I enjoyed but couldnt play out so loads of 70s disco and soul/funk. I ran 80s indie nights in Dublin successfully for years and then discovered Balearic music and now I’m happily settled flitting between Balearic, Disco and laid back beats (Yacht Rock re-edits and chill out tunes). I’m not a crate digger so you wont find me talking about Scott Walker Japanese reissues in the farthest reaches of the forum but I love my music and am happy to learn from others and stand on the shoulders of giants. Technically I was never very good at beat mixing but I love djing out to a crowd and I’m now watching my son turn into a cracking House DJ and that has reinvigorated me!
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Selling yourself short, you were magic at Heathers (?) a few years ago. Had the place bouncing.
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music selection better
technical skills definitely worse
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Great thread. So cool to be saying that in 2022.
Eh so like most of us I have a wider selection of music now, constantly discovering more artists, subgenres based on eras & locations etc
But have struggled to find the perfect method of organisation. I like to play as eclectically as possible while maintaining a focus on “groove” based music… so the latest plan (for digital) is: I’ve created folders of every last genre I’m into and the plan is to fill them with 50-100 tracks of each, the more specific the sub-genre the better. Sounds easy but if it’s a somewhat niche area, say for example 90s hip hop with ragga vocals, I have to make an effort to dig out enough to fulfil my quota. So the master plan is to keep this up until all sub-genre folders are full. Then refresh them from time to time. Obviously it’s easy to fill a folder just called “disco” so I have maybe 5 - 10 variations of disco folders (jazz-funk / disco / Italo / modern soul yadda yadda) on the go
Took a break from buying vinyl since the pandemic. Hard to justify adding more to the abyss but definitely not stopped for good
God it’s nice to nerd out with strangers online about music again. Posting about music on socials feels different
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I am in a similar position to you, i have tried to only buy vinyl if it only exists on that format, which means most of it is older, but i will treat myself to a few things per year that i deem to be a classic that i would like to be able to include in a mix that are on digital and wax. I have been getting into the habit of grip, rip and flipping too, but it feels somehow wrong.
Technically i am confident i can dj next to anyone without looking amateurish, but there is always something to learn.
I noticed when i was digging through my 7" shelves for the heaviest funky rock thread that i have tonnes of that style of music, and literally nowhere to play it, nor will i probably ever have anywhere to play it again. Which makes me wonder why i made such an effort to collect so much of it in the first place tbh. I skipped past a copy of Flirtations - Nothin But A Heartache in a plastic sleeve with Les Scarabées - Puisque tu m’as quittée, because in theory i could mix between the two. Where on earth would i be doing that??
What you said about the “90s Hip Hop with Ragga vocals” folder is a good example of my own issue with how i organise digital folders. It would be nice to have 50-100 tracks and i am sure there are way more than 100 great tracks that could fill that folder, but i am not sure i even really need a folder with 100 of a more niche genre of music that, when i bought vinyl, i would enjoy the handful of songs i owned in that style. But then again, now you have the option to just get all of the songs in that style if you want.
So yeah, maybe better than ever, but with way too many options that end up sorta muddying what i would want to be playing at any time.
This really is a great thread!
I like to think I’m better because DJs get better as their music collection grows. But there is no substitute for playing regularly. Now I create some scene in my head, and imagine what I will play next. Currently: What should I play after, Viola Wills’s “If You Could Read My Mind” at a roller rink? Trouble is, I play that scene out endlessly, looking for the perfect choice. It becomes stifling. When playing to a crowd you don’t have the luxury of reliving scenarios, there’s always the next song to think about.
This forum is as good a substitute as I’ve found, as it gets me out of my head, and focused on what others are doing. Ah, this is a possible direction I hadn’t thought of. 
While not playing out, I kept myself creatively satisfied by sending out mix CDs with accompanying liners to friends and family. (Yes, mix CDs in 2020-21. I am a Luddite.) It was an enjoyable pandemic pastime. I thought maybe the desire to do this for a crowd had left. I was wrong. The dancefloor’s attraction is relentless. I need to find an outlet!
I’m so happy to have found you all 
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Technically much better and I play out 2-3 times/month usually doing that warm up which is great as I can nip off home without the sun rising. Musically, possibly better but I suffer from a wicked case of imposter’s syndrome thinking that my records are complete rubbish compared to everyone else’s. I’ve also found that my anxiety while I’m playing is much worse now than it’s ever been to a point where I’m hyper-aware of the punters when before I hardly noticed them.
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I know what you mean. Sometimes I think all my records are crap and it’s shameful. Luckily, ocassionally I think my collection kicks arse.
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Keep doing the mix cd’s, that shows proper love and thought. I would love the idea that someone had spent the time to put that together for me.
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Everyone thinks this at some point I reckon. If you’ve got good taste then you have good records. There are plenty of people with jaw dropping collections who aren’t particularly good DJs…
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Still using the advice that Balearik Soul gave me years ago. First of. play a record, then play another and repeat. Think about selection and programming.
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Thanks @Cobbler_Bob
I put lots of work into them; creating a unique theme, ensuring the songs worked well together, thinking about my listening audience. Something would usually happen to inspire a theme. I need that spark!
Noel Watson wrote some lovely words online and said I was one of his favourite DJ’s. Which was nice.
So I guess I’ve got better 
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I used to play suicide is painless at house parties and I definitely played Dennis waterman’s I could be so good for you at fabric with da bank so hopefully I’m better now even though I haven’t played anywhere in a decade (those three things could be related)…
Sg
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I’m definitely better than I’ve ever been. Some of it is actively practicing open-mindedness and studying wide-ranging genres I previously under-appreciated. Some of it is doing a weekly 4 hr internet show and playing two or more 8+ hour beach sets each week during the summer. Some of it having some basic organization to my collection (i.e. correct year, meaningful genre tag, a few topical crates [e.g. beach, rain, weekend, sex, happiness, etc]) . Some of it is, to my wife’s chagrin, way too much shopping.
On top of all that, one thing really jumped out at me a couple years ago. Though I was a late-comer to serato, I’ve been using it with absolutely no exceptions since 2014. I literally boxed up my decks and mixer and haven’t laid my hands on anyone else’s since then. A couple years back I was visiting a friend and got on his 1200s thinking that it would be like riding a bike and, moreso, that my DJing hadn’t changed a bit. I was blown away to realize I now DJ completely differently since using Serato. I now mix visually (matching and navigating waveforms) much more than I knew or expected. I’ve since become aware that reading the waveform and on-the-fly locating mix points, musical phrases, etc has become one of the main focuses of my djing, allowing me to more concisely present and juxtapose songs. I can and do still mix by ear but I’ve found that my djing is so much more concise and powerful now that I now equally focus on the visual aspect that the waveform allows. Didn’t see it happen but I don’t have any desire to go back to the basics; I simply enjoy djing more now that I use the ear and the waveform.
Oh, and probably most importantly, its learning to focus less on beatmatching, effects and tricks and more on playing a good song at an appropriate time.
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Interesting @Jesse3enne77. Thanks for sharing this. It’s making me think about the sensory aspects and thought processes of DJIng. @GrimsbyRiviera know any DJ-friendly neuroscientists?
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Actually Tom Middleton is really into all of this kind of stuff. He’s also done seminars about music and sleeping too. Worth paying attention to some of the things he’s doing.