This is not the first time this has happened to me, and not from only one recordist/facility. In the days of linear storage, see "tape", this was never a problem. Now it's happening all the time.
All kinds of stuff happens BEFORE beat one...! If everyone played their instruments like a sequencer, this would not be a problem, but people are not robots!
For folks tracking to MIDI, leave at least one bar of count in at the top, and for folks not tracking to clicks, at least two seconds before beat one. This will help avoid clipping off the beginning of your guitar, piano, bass... well, you get the idea.
The same goes for tails, or the end of tracks. If you let things sustain about twice as long as you think you'll need, it'll probably be about right. I can't tell you how hard it is to make a nice sexy ending when the bass mutes about half way down the fade vs. everything else. I think this was one of the first things I learned in the studio years ago... When you hit that last note... HOLD IT! Folks tracking in DAWs are now second guessing the end lengths, and cutting off chords, etc. that were held by the players...
Hard drive space is cheap! You can afford the extra seconds...
