When you feel you are good enough do a few recordings so that you can see how you mix and what you need to improve on. When you record you will notice that your mixing will either sound better or worse because you are listening to it from a different perspective. When listening to a mix you've done, you are actually listening to it, when mixing your aren't really listening to it. So your mixes will either sound worse or sound better.
Also when listening to a mix, you will also notice that the records will sound either too fast or too slow because when you are mixing you tend not to really notice how fast they are, but you will notice if they sound too slow.

When you are listening to a mix you have done, try not to make it seem better than it is. You might say the mixings really good but really its total bollocks; you just don't want to tell yourself that. So try & listen to it from someone who has never heard your mixes before. If you fuck up, which you will, try and decide why you did, and when you next get behind the decks, work on the reason you fucked up.

Another good way to improve is to give mixes to someone else because they most probably have never ever heard you mix. This is a god thing because they can tell you where you went wrong and what was bad & what was good.

If you are recording a set because you want to send it off to someone, a record label or a club perhaps, make sure your mix is tiptop. Remember this mix has got to be PERFECT, so if you fuck up, stop the mix & start again. The person who you send this mix to isn't going to want someone who fucks up, even if its once in a while, as soon as you fuck up on a set they will stop listening to that set and listen to another one. Plan your set to the finest detail. Take weeks if you have to, just get the set right. Make it stand out from others, make a good playlist, make sure you can mix all the songs. Don't try and mix something you know you cant, or only get right some of the time. Get each mix right. To make your mix stand out from others do something with the cover, don't just put the track listings and your address on there, put pictures on there make it colourful. Make it so that if this record label/ club owner sees this tape/CD/MD, which looks fantastic, he/she thinks WOW! I have got to listen to that mix, it looks brilliant.

On the other hand if you are making a set for yourself, don't worry about fine detail, just do the mix so that you can listen to it, then review it, then practice some more.

I wil gladly review any sets sent to me. For more ino go to the Mixed Tapes/CDs section.