Hey Olly,
You ARE practicing, which puts you ahead of the pack. There is no way to learn this stuff from books, video’s or even Phil’s excellent courses, although they certainly shorten your learning curve by about a decade or two, without regular practice (rather practice 30 mins a day every day, than 3 1/2 hours once a week!).
Also with today’s technological advantages and possibilities it’s easy to become overwhelmed and feel inadequate because you are not using every option.
Quite frankly, if you can make two tracks blend together harmoniously, without beats or keys clashing and you can do that consistently over the night, AND you can pick the right track at the right time, you are ready to play out. Without ever touching a filter, FX or even EQ button (granted, I’d hate to do without EQ anymore :-)), let alone remix decks and such.
True, it depends a little on what DJ you are. If you are specific to a genre and you have a crowd that comes for that specific genre, you will have to be a bit more creative in your mixes, because this kind of crowd will expect to be served some “new” stuff (if only your remix of a track they already know).
For most every other kind of DJ, the winner is being able to set the mood, not doing the most outrageous remixes. If you can make people feel good and come back to a venue and spend their drinking money there, you will be king in the promoter/owner’s book! He/she is only worried about the bottom line.
So, keep up the practice. Take a chance when you have one to go out and actually see what it is like to have a real audience in front of you (and notice that very few of them end up looking at you all night!).
And please let us know how you fare.
Greetinx.
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