Playing music on my Ipad Mini

[Garry Kelsey]

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.

 

[lynx369]

Do you have them imported into iTunes? If not, do that, then sync your iPad Mini.

 

[twerppoet]

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.

 

[Garry Kelsey]

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?

 

[Garry Kelsey]

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?

 

[lynx369]

Do you have anything vital on the iPad, if not do a full reset.

 

[scifan57]

Have you followed the suggestions on this Apple help page? If you see error -54 when you sync with iTunes

 

[Garry Kelsey]

Do you have anything vital on the iPad, if not do a full reset.

Tried that, no luck. I am now able to sync to my iPad but no songs show up in Music app.

 

[twerppoet]

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.

 

[lynx369]

iTunes is a PC/Mac software, not iOS.

 

[twerppoet]

iTunes is a PC/Mac software, not iOS.

There used to be iTunes on iOS, before they rolled/changed it into the Music app. Also some of the music related services used to be called iTunes something. Some still are. To avoid confusion I got into the habit of clarifying what service or device I was talking about. The habit lingers.

 

[Garry Kelsey]

iTunes is a PC/Mac software, not iOS.

I'm sorry to be such a lame brain but I don't understand some of the lingo in Apple language and it's very frustrating when I don't know where to go to correct the problem.

When I plug in the iPad to my PC this is what happens: The file explorer opens on my PC and I can see my iPad. I then go to iTunes and select the small device icon. (It doesn't always appear) but when it does I select it and then I select sync in the bottom menu. If I exit iTunes and go back in the icon does appear. In the top center of the iTunes screen it says the sync is running but nothing ever happens. It says it is preparing to copy items but stops immediately. I tried selecting a few files to sync rather than all music but that didn't seem to help. In Help, the first thing mentioned was to consolidate the iTunes Library files. What does that mean? Should I copy them all to the iTunes folder?

 

[Garry Kelsey]

I'm sorry to be such a lame brain but I don't understand some of the lingo in Apple language and it's very frustrating when I don't know where to go to correct the problem.

When I plug in the iPad to my PC this is what happens: The file explorer opens on my PC and I can see my iPad. I then go to iTunes and select the small device icon. (It doesn't always appear) but when it does I select it and then I select sync in the bottom menu. If I exit iTunes and go back in the icon does appear. In the top center of the iTunes screen it says the sync is running but nothing ever happens. It says it is preparing to copy items but stops immediately. I tried selecting a few files to sync rather than all music but that didn't seem to help. In Help, the first thing mentioned was to consolidate the iTunes Library files. What does that mean? Should I copy them all to the iTunes folder?

As you may have noticed, I don't follow instructions very well. When I did I was able to sync all my music. Thanks for staying with me for so long.

 

[twerppoet]

As you may have noticed, I don't follow instructions very well. When I did I was able to sync all my music. Thanks for staying with me for so long.

My instructions were pretty skimpy. Glad you got it figured out.

 

[lynx369]

To import into iTunes, go to the files menu on the menu bar and scroll down to Import Files or Import Folder.