No stress 
I’m just curious. I’m in the same place as you, kids and stuff, tho last year I’ve been able to merge my music making into my work, which I notice has a pretty big impact on my decision when it comes to gear. So I’m becoming more particular, which perhaps works against my own curiosity sometimes.
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you can buy the packs as lifetime licence for 1 buck, no need for the Roland subscription.
lots of interesting sounds in those packs, it opens up the device imo
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Also if you ever had a Roland account before they launched this new thingy, you might get some free stuff credited to your account. I had an account for Aira plugouts (System-1m) and when I transferred over there was a bunch of packs available to me at zero cost.
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fingers crossed. I‘m looking for something like that. Samples from mars have a few I believe. I can imagine this to be a lot of work
You do need a Roland Account and also I think you need to download the Roland cloud software, but you don’t need a subscription. Within the Roland cloud software you can buy a lifetime key for instruments or/and soundfiles and get a lot of free trails every month.
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Hot damn. Thank you for succinctly explaining what Roland cannot. 
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Thinking of getting the 707 to build backing tracks that I can play/record guitar along with. I’m aware of both the lack of a song mode and the very limited looping time, but could I work around this in an unfussy way by connecting to the iPad?
The setup I’m envisioning is guitar -> amp sim box -> 707 input, with the 707 -> iPad via USB. This seems like it should work to record multi-tracked 707 loops to an iPad DAW (Zenbeats?), along with the guitar signal being processed by the 707’s effects.
Is there anything I’m overlooking?
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You cannot multitrack on the iPad via the USB connection because only the generic, class compliant driver is supported. On MacOS or Windows you can get individual channels via the USB connection.
Also, the way that Roland has implemented USB audio means that you can’t monitor “just” the DAW/software playback using the generic driver, and requires some minor workarounds on desktop (using the “Vendor” driver). Basically, you cannot disable the internal audio tracks on the devices, unlike on Elektron devices.
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I downloaded the Roland Cloud, seems straightforward enough, but waiting for the zen thing to install.
That’s very informative, thank you. So it sounds like that would limit me to using the iPad essentially like a tape recorder, with monitoring turned off. If I hit stop on the 707 and then play back what I just recorded on the iPad, I will be able to hear it over the 707’s outs though, correct?
If you use Zenbeats, is there any sort of integration with the 707?
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I think the answer to your question is yes. For example, you could record Track 1 into the iPad, then, when you play it back from the iPad, turn down Track 1 on the 707, so you just hear the iPad recording of Track 1, rather than Track 1 from the 707 AND the recording for Track 1 from the iPad.
I do not use ZenBeats, but I have tried it. Everyone is wondering whether Zenology Pro, or hardware integration will come to the iPad, but I haven’t followed the issue closely. Your best bet is to head over to the Audiobus Forum (good luck). I asked about Zenology Pro directly and didn’t get an answer from the ZenBeats devs, but they are ordinarily responsive and active over there.
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Papertiger is right.
Another workflow that might work would be to record a backing track of mix out from the 707 on the ipad using Zenbeats or aum.
Then mute/turn off all the tracks apart from the track with your guitar onto a new track on the ipad.
I am sure there are other possibilities-I am still getting my head around this thing.
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That’s precisely what I had in mind, but do I actually need to mute the parts individually, rather than just hitting stop, to play guitar through the 707 fx?
How the blazes do you get Zenology to run? It says I have it installed in my library but when I go to library and click on it it takes me back to the page that says it is available in my library, wtf?
Muting tracks is easy. There is a dedicated button See page 22 of the original manual.
Oh I’m sure it’s easy, I’m just trying to resolve all of my dumb questions before making a purchase: if all sequencing and recording is stopped, can I still process incoming audio and send it back out over USB?
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The bottom line is Roland’s implementation of both the Generic and Vendor drivers kind of stinks because you can’t disable the internal tracks on the machine.
And their response to the issues I pointed out was to use the Vendor driver.
Me: The Generic, class compliant driver has fundamental implementation issues.
Roland: Use the Vendor driver on a computer.
Honestly, and I know people hate this, but I don’t care: buy one and try it in the various scenarios you want to use it in. The lack of information, thorough documentation, and demos from Roland about how to do certain things assuage my guilt.
That 8GB sample pack from Noiiz was nice.
No ‘special’ integration with Zenbeats.
Zenology is a plug-in. Run it in your host.
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I don’t have any host as I don’t use a DAW, so that means basically it is useless?