To me the pickups and the wood used make the basic sound of the guitar. Les Paul’s are made from a hard wood, if you made the same body shape out of Pine and used the same pickups the guitar would sound completely different. The soft wood would let the sound waves move through it faster and would also release the waves from the wood faster. The hard mahogany is Hard so the sound waves move slower through the wood almost trapping it in the wood so it has sustain keeping the waves in the wood not allowing it to be released.

By changing thickness, shape and types of wood you change how the sound wave moves through or stays in the wood.