Dear I.D. Ott,

This is a phenomenon I have observed increasingly, even in the most expensive models of guitar.

There are various ways to solve this. One way is to remove all of these badly-placed frets completely and fill the slots or, better still, bring the instrument to me and I will install a fretless fingerboard for a moderate fee. This will also cure that annoying problem of fret buzz at the same time.

There are more technologically complex solutions such as the use of highly compensated nuts and bridges in conjunction with evenly spaced frets but I find, as the guitar is a so-called "not well-tempered instrument (a technical luthier's term), your guitar may not like this approach and may become angry with you.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Guitar