On his solo albums he has that distinctive sound to his vocals, is he doubling up or maybe reverb etc etc 
Not so much echo but, I'm sure you know what I mean, mainly from "amused to death" and a lot from his newest album "is this the life" 
How can I apply that kind of effect the easiest way, can I get some suggestions and techniques I can try please. 
 

I don't know what he used.
But take a look at Roland Dimension D. This effect was used in the 1980s for countless productions.
There is a perfect emulation from UAD:
In the mid of the video  5:30  is a example with a voice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKKmdDH7lMw
 
Maybe that is what you search.
 
 

He uses a bit of slap-back delay sometimes on his stuff. Is that what you are talking about? A short delay used very subtlely in the mix. Name a particular track of his that has the effect you are referring to.

The Floyd boys were huge fans of the Roland Space Echo, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was indeed a nice tape-based slapback effect on there.
 
Also, I don't know about Waters but all the other vocals were judiciuosly double-tracked (and sometimes with Gilmour and Wright both singing, so now you're talking about FOUR voices!) and I wouldn't be surprised if Waters did it too...his voice was noticeably thinner than Gilmour's so he'd need the extra weight to compete. 

Yes - that sounds like Dimension D + Roland Space Echo. Both are since many years emulations from UAD. With Dimension D you can double the voice - and the space echo does the slapback. And UAD is studio standard.
They call the emulations Galaxy tape echo & studio d chorus.
http://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/delay-modulation.html
 

I use Guitar Rig 4s tape echo unit, which is an emulation of the Floyd's early binson echo unit. One of the first echo units produced, using metallic tape...I just had to check, because I always thought the binson used wire...maybe the metallic tape looks like wire?
 
You could also use Kramer's Waves master tape effect, which replicates tape based echo. Sonar comes with its own echo unit...it's in the Nomad Suite of effects, perfectly acceptable.
 
Waters probably does use some sort of double tracking too. Sonar again has a device for that, this is the vox align plug, but if you want something with more modulation, there is Wave's Doubler effect, which I use for everything lol...remember ABBA use to triple track everything if I remember correctly. Finally, there is Waves ADT which emulates The Beatle's ADT device, built by Ken Scott, second engineer at Abbey Road in 1966 to accommodate Lennon's laziness. :).  
 
There are other things to take into account when thinking about Water's like vocals too, like understanding proper gain staging when mixing. 
 
Ben

I've never noticed Waters double-tracking his vocals. But I haven't listened to him recently. If we had a track to go on we could work out the effect you are after! Roger's voice is normally recorded and mixed quite dry apart from a bit of slap-back sometimes - he has quite a strong voice so not so sure he would choose to double track if he doesn't need to.

35mm
I've never noticed Waters double-tracking his vocals. But I haven't listened to him recently. If we had a track to go on we could work out the effect you are after! Roger's voice is normally recorded and mixed quite dry apart from a bit of slap-back sometimes - he has quite a strong voice so not so sure he would choose to double track if he doesn't need to.

Yea you're right about Water's and double tracking, I was just chucking extra information in :). Some modulation effect can be useful either on vocals or on the delay or verb too. 
 
Ben

Hi all , Thanks for the many replies , Thats a lot for me to check out.
 
I guess the song that could best showcase what i want is a song called "Three Wishes" from his album "Amused to Death" 
If i got that down,I could lessen the effect somewhat for other projects.But that track is basically what id like to achieve.
 
Thanks again for all the replies
 
Dan 

In the early P.Floyd the Hammond man Richard Wright used an Echo Binson, a very good echo tape/disk made by an italian manifacturer. Now it's out of production from approximately 30 or 40 years.