The Gibson Les Paul is a solid body electric guitar originally developed in the 1950s. The Les Paul was designed by Ted McCarty, working with the popular guitarist Les Paul, Gibson, who recruited to adopt the new model.
The Les Paul was the result of design collaboration between Gibson Guitar Corporation, and later pop star, inventor of electronics, and met the jazz guitarist Les Paul. In 1950, with the introduction of the Fender Telecaster to the musical market, electric guitars became a public insanity. In reaction, Gibson Guitar president Ted McCarty brought guitarist Les Paul into the company as a consultant. Les Paul was a respected innovator who had been experimenting with guitar design for years to benefit his own music. In fact, he had hand-built prototype solid body called “The Log”, a design widely considered the first solid-body guitar Spanish ever built, as opposed to the “Hawaii” or lap-steel guitar. This guitar is known as “registration” because the solid core is a pine block whose width and depth are a little more than the width of the fingerboard. While many other prototypes and limited production of solid body models from other manufacturers have already arisen, we know that in 1945-1946, Les Paul had approached Gibson with “prototype of the” registry, but his solid body design was rejected.
In 1951, this initial rejection became design collaboration between Gibson Guitar Corporation and Les Paul. It was agreed that the new Les Paul guitar was to be a costly and well-made instrument in Gibson’s tradition. Despite the differences in memories that have helped to design the Les Paul, were far from replica Fender market competitors models. Since the 1930s, Gibson had offered electric hollow-body guitars like the ES-150, at a minimum, these hollow body electric models provided a set of basic design cues to the new Gibson solid body, like a body curves more traditional offering competitive conditions Fender, and a punch in (“set”), the neck, in contrast to Fender’s bolt on neck joint design.
The importance of the contributions of Les Paul on his Gibson guitar design remains controversial. The book “50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul” limits Paul’s contributions to two: advice on the trapeze tailpiece, and a preference for color (indicating that Paul preferred gold as “looks expensive”, and a second option black because “makes fingers appear to move faster in the box”, and “looks classy, like a tuxedo”) .
In addition, Gibson President Ted McCarty states that Gibson Guitar Corporation merely approached Les Paul for the right to print the name of the musician in the bucket to increase sales of the model, and that in 1951, Paul Gibson showed an almost complete. McCarty also claims that design discussions with Les Paul were limited to the final stage and the placement of a maple top on mahogany body all higher density and maintain, that Les Paul had requested invested. However, according to Gibson Guitar, this investment would cause the guitar to be too heavy, and Paul’s request was denied.  Another change: the original Goldtop going to be all mahogany and custom was later to be the maple top / mahogany body. Beyond these applications, the contribution of the line Les Paul guitar that bears his name is stated to be cosmetic. For example, once the employer, Paul had specified that the guitar is offered in a gold finish, not just for show, but to underscore the high quality of the Les Paul instrument, too.  The later-issue Les Paul including flame maple (tiger stripes) and “quilted” maple finishes, and when contrasted range of competing cars Fender line as color finishes. Gibson was mostly in line with their choices of wood, and some Goldtops or customs have been stripped to reveal beautifully finished wooden figures concealed from below.

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