I arrived here from the PC side and the Apple rules don't seem to work. I have a lot of my own recorded music on my PC but have not been able to transfer to my IPad Mini. Any help would be appreciated.
As lynx369 said, if you want them in the native Music app, you need to import them into iTunes on a computer, then sync the content. You can also use Apple Music along with iTunes Matching (both paid services). You still need to import the music, but it becomes availabe in your iTunes music library in the cloud and can be downloaded from there. The alternative is to use a third party player app. These have several options for transfering music, including but not limited to using your webbrowser on a local network (calld Wi-/Fi Drive or similar in most apps), a USB cable with a computer app like iMazing, and cloud services. Since I’m already heavily invested in music purchased in the iTunes Store, I prefer to use the Music app and the services already mentioned. I do have a third party app for audio files I don’t want mixed with my music. At this time I’m using nPlayer, though I have used VLC and OPlayer before.
I have them all on iTunes but it's the sync step I can't seem to master. Under devices sync selection is not selectable and when I select the icon beside music in the upper left corner it disappears and nothing happens. All of the other suggestions are Greek to me. I have even uploaded some tunes to iCloud as MP3 files and WAV files but can only play them one at a time from there. They aren't available in Music. My iPad is connected by USB and it also has wifi connectivity. I don't seem to have iTunes on my iPad. Is that what I am missing?
The latest happening is this error message , after a re-boot on both the PC and iPad, (The iPad cannot be synced. An unknown error occurred (-54). Does anyone know what has happened?
Have you followed the suggestions on this Apple help page? If you see error -54 when you sync with iTunes
I’m probably pointing out the obvious, but; did you go into the iTunes sync settings for your device? You can’t access the sync settings unless the iPad is plugged in. When it is plugged in a small device icon should show up in the menue. I can’t provide more info or screenshots. I don’t have iTunes installed on anything these days. Well, anywhere but on the iPad itself.