don't quote me as i'm trying hard to remember but isn't there an option to skip the first two bars when you render to audio?
Yes, so as it turns out, after a bit of poking around I saw that if it's an audio file, you can choose the .WAV button > Export song as audio file > and there is an Include 2 bar lead-in option there (which was unchecked). After I checked it it solved the problem for *audio* files, but I still have the same problem with *video* files, after I render them still no lead in.
I know there must be some option somewhere to fix this, but still haven't found it.