oh my. That makes sense then. I actually de-constructed a DC jack (out of frustration and having never used a 2 pin one before) and saw that the centre was connected to the short lug. I just assumed that the centre would be the positive... don't ask me why!

welp. Will flip the DC tomorrow and see how that goes.

Would I lose bypass signal if the current isn't going through the pedal? OR is there still another problem do you think?