Paul's electric guitar prototype, known as "the log," was built in the 1940s on a piece of 4-by-4 lumber with the strings anchored on a door hinge. Audiences rejected the original version, resulting in the addition of a solid body shaped like a guitar. Gibson Guitar began marketing the Les Paul electric guitar in 1952, putting the guitar at the center of popular music performance and profoundly influencing the rock-and-roll and rhythm-and -blues revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. The Les Paul guitar became and remains the instrument of preference for many top ranking guitarists in pop, rock, jazz, blues and country music.

In the 1930s, Paul began experimenting with recording sound which led to the development of the "sound on sound" recording technique during which performances were built layer-by-layer by "bouncing" the sound between two recording devices. His equipment used records at first, but later versions used recording tape.

In the 1950's, Paul pioneered the multi-recording machine which revolutionized music recording techniques by allowing each instrument or vocal part its own track on a tape, independent of the other tracks. He is widely considered the inventor of the first 8-track tape recorder.

Paul was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 for his contributions "both as an entertainer and inventor." His inventions were sought after by the Smithsonian Institution which now possesses about four dozen of his guitars and other memorabilia.