This necessarily led to a change in the types of instruments that were preferred by composers, for many instruments of the Renaissance were greatly limited in pitch range, being designed only to play a discreet role in a consort of instruments, as well as in dynamic scope. Entire families of instruments, such as racketts and shawms, were unsuited to carrying a solo melodic line with brilliance and expressiveness because they were incapable of dynamic variation, and fell into disuse or at best provided color in string-dominated ensembles. The low instruments of the woodwind consorts were all but abandoned. Even in the string family, members of the viol family – except for the bass viol which provided the necessary "basso continuo" – were gradually replaced by the new and highly virtuosic violin. The lute and viola da gamba continued being written for in an accompanimental role but could not compete with the violin in volume. The shawm was replaced by the oboe, which had a more refined sound and was capable of dynamic nuance. The cornett, which in the Renaissance tended to function as the soprano member of the sackbut family, survived in the early seventeenth century as a solo instrument, even having a large repertoire rivaling that of the violin, but eventually disappeared as well. However, Renaissance instruments did not vanish from use quickly; contemporary references indicate such instruments survived in chamber or military contexts well throughout the seventeenth century and even into the eighteenth.