comma before 'but' [conjunction]: without making a sound, but feeling

[sheeptwo]

Hi,
Can you please tell me if the commas (and the lack of) before "but" are OK?

Repeat this process over several days but begin to gradually reduce the volume of your “shouting” until you can mentally “shout” stop without making a sound, but feeling the full force.

 

[perpend]

I would say this: Repeat this process over several days, but begin to gradually reduce the volume of your "shouting" until you can mentally shout "STOP" without making a sound, but feeling the full force.

 

[Keith Bradford]

There's no hard and fast rule for this, like there is in French for instance. Three factors should be considered:

• How long is the whole sentence? "Not waving but drowning" makes perfect sense as it stands.
• How complicated is the sentence? In a very long sentence with several subsidiary clauses, on order to make the meaning clear for the reader, who may not be a native English-speaker, you might find that it's not a comma you need, but rather a semi-colon; but that's just my opinion.
• Where do the pauses fall? A comma is an indication of a pause, but not necessarily a pause for breath.

In your instance I agree with perpend